Gramophone

[EdgeleyRob]

Agreed: but I wouldn't mind about the paper (especially if this resulted in a cheaper price!) if the content were back to the standard that made it unmissable for me in the '70s and '80s.

Agreed. I wouldn't have been without the magazine in those days, but it is a long time since I bought a copy.

[MickyD]

Thanks for these latest comments...it's now a year since I dropped Gramophone for IRR. I often wonder if things at the former magazine have improved but going by this messageboard, they clearly haven't. I'll stick to IRR, I'm very happy with it.

[VodkaDilc]

Thanks for these latest comments...it's now a year since I dropped Gramophone for IRR. I often wonder if things at the former magazine have improved but going by this messageboard, they clearly haven't. I'll stick to IRR, I'm very happy with it.

I have only just managed to stop Gramophone arriving each month. It's a relief to be spared the irritation of witnessing the decline of a once essential publication - not good for the blood pressure. My bookshelf containing the full set of IRR from March 2000 is within very easy reach and is a constant source of reference. Recent copies of Gramophone have been disposed of; though I have earlier editions stored away for reference (one day!).

As I have noted previously, I find Fanfare an interesting supplement to IRR and have just begun my second period of subscription. (Could this be a legacy of my lecturers, forty+ years ago, who always warned against relying on just one source? Or even my A level History teacher: "Read the textbook and get the facts clear in your head. Then go and see what the likes of AJP Taylor have to say - and see how far they agree or, mostly, disagree".)

[Panjandrum]

If this article is to be believed Gramophone's circulation has plunged to a mere 26,000 with fewer than 600 on line subscribers. Reports of its demise may by greatly understated.

[John Wright]

I'm a frequent visitor to the Gramophone Archive, not for its classical content but for the 1920s-1940s when dance bands, jazz and other 'popular' music was reviewed in its pages, and that was when Melody Maker was the most popular dance/jazz source. I don't know when Gramophone became solely classsical.

Anyway, that is a low figure for Gramophone, and I'm astonished the ClassicFM magazine is almost as low, and it's a pity that magazine is to stop publication next month

http://www.rhinegold.co.uk/magazines/classical_music/news/classical_music_news_story.asp?id=1276

Classic FM claimed 6 million listeners at one time, yet only 30,000 buy the magazine - I really do wonder about how relevant/accurate is Rajar in the way it gets its data.....

[JFLL]

I'm a frequent visitor to the Gramophone Archive .......

I used to be, but the search facility is so ridiculous that I've given up using it for reviews. There are so many scanning errors that searching is pretty well hit-and-miss. For example, I wanted to look up reviews of the Martinu string quartets, and found that I also had to enter a search for 'Martini' since that's what the scanning process had often turned him into. And then I got a lot of unwanted stuff about Giovanni Battista Martini, of course. I once found the word 'Nazi' cropping up out of the blue in a review, presumably because that's what the scanner or spell-checker substituted for the correct word. (And, no, it wasn't a review of Karajan .....)

Everyone wants the old Gramophile back, but of course they won't do that as they would lose too much face. A great pity.

[Panjandrum]

I used to be, but the search facility is so ridiculous that I've given up using it for reviews. There are so many scanning errors that searching is pretty well hit-and-miss. For example, I wanted to look up reviews of the Martinu string quartets, and found that I also had to enter a search for 'Martini' since that's what the scanning process had often turned him into. And then I got a lot of unwanted stuff about Giovanni Battista Martini, of course.

I agree about the search function on the Archive. When I raised the issue with them, Martin Cullingford expressed surprise that this was the case, and promised to look into it. That was 15 months ago.

I agree that it is hopeless with any composers/conductors whose names are accented in some way (eg Dvorak, has to be sought under Dvolik etc). Therefore, it is better to search using other key words that are likely to be fairly unique to that particular search (eg conductors, soloists, alternative names of works etc).

[JFLL]

I agree that it is hopeless with any composers/conductors whose names are accented in some way (eg Dvorak, has to be sought under Dvolik etc). Therefore, it is better to search using other key words that are likely to be fairly unique to that particular search (eg conductors, soloists, alternative names of works etc).

Yes, searching is an art we've all had to learn from Google and other search engines, but the trouble is that you often can't find alternative search terms, as indeed for Martinu + string + quartet. You also need to be able to distinguish between string quartets by Martinu and works performed by the Martinu String Quartet. (Same goes for Smetana, Janacek and all the other string quartets named after a composer.) What I'd like is to be able to search under a combination of different categories, e.g. Composer, Work, Genre, Performer, etc., such as you find on the BBC Music Mag or Classics Today websites. The otherwise very useful MusicWeb International site suffers from the same limitations, but as that's evidently run on a shoestring (unlike, presumably, Gramophone), you can forgive them.

[french frank]

Classic FM claimed 6 million listeners at one time, yet only 30,000 buy the magazine - I really do wonder about how relevant/accurate is Rajar in the way it gets its data.....

I wouldn't expect the listenership of CFM to be great (music) magazine buyers/readers. The whole point of the station is that it caters for casual listening rather than people who want to make a study of the subject.

On An Overgrown Path's comments about Gramophone and R3 are interesting, but I wonder if he has it right? It may be that Gramophone has gone down the CFM route of popularisation and lost one audience without finding a new one (for the same reason that CFM magazine is closing). In the case of R3, I would suggest that there is an audience for what they're doing (cf CFM) and it will be gains v losses: if they can pick up more listeners than they lose they'll be happy.

And according to this site, IRR has a circulation slightly higher than BBCMM's, at 43,000.

[VodkaDilc]

And according to this site, IRR has a circulation slightly higher than BBCMM's, at 43,000.

If these figures are accurate and IRR's circulation is much higher than Gramophone's, that is a great achievement in only twelve years. Barry, Máire and their colleagues must be delighted. I get the impression that IRR has a large international sale (as its name suggests!). Even so, the figures give me renewed faith in the good sense of the public.

[Rosie55]

I am losing faith with this once essential read.
I was heartened when Ivan March wrote a very perceptive review (January 2012 edition) on a new Saint-Saens CD featuring the inspiring pianist Christine Croshaw www.christinecroshaw.com who lost nearly all of her sight in the early 2000s and has miraculously resumed her concert/recording/teaching career with barely any vision.
After reading Ivan's review in this recent edition, I emailed Gramophone's editor suggesting Croshaw would make a good feature in view not just of her sight etc but her simply first class piano playing, as stated in their own review this January just gone 'Croshaw is a first rate artist'
Not even a reply...!
Samples of her discs with Meridian, including this recent Saint-Saens, can be heard on her website.
Enjoy...

[Beef Oven]

I am losing faith with this once essential read.
I was heartened when Ivan March wrote a very perceptive review (January 2012 edition) on a new Saint-Saens CD featuring the inspiring pianist Christine Croshaw www.christinecroshaw.com who lost nearly all of her sight in the early 2000s and has miraculously resumed her concert/recording/teaching career with barely any vision.
After reading Ivan's review in this recent edition, I emailed Gramophone's editor suggesting Croshaw would make a good feature in view not just of her sight etc but her simply first class piano playing, as stated in their own review this January just gone 'Croshaw is a first rate artist'
Not even a reply...!
Samples of her discs with Meridian, including this recent Saint-Saens, can be heard on her website.
Enjoy...

I subscribed to Gramophone for about 20 years and gave up 5 years ago.

It aint what it was!

Formulaic reviews and features and one of the best hi-fi reviews replaced with What Hi-Fi!

[french frank]

If these figures are accurate and IRR's circulation is much higher than Gramophone's, that is a great achievement in only twelve years.

And BBC MM's figures, given as 42,000+ have also been holding up reasonably well. The lesson should be that there is still a healthy readership for a specialist magazine - aimed at enthusiasts (a warning to BBC MM, if needed!). The fortunes of Gramophone and CFM Magazine suggest that there isn't such a readership for a more downmarket publication. But what a pity that a title like Gramophone should have been allowed to end up like this - particularly when the strategy was clearly designed to boost circulation!

If the Gramophone people are reading this, perhaps they would set us right on the circulation figures if these are seriously inaccurate?

[gurnemanz]

I agree about the search function on the Archive. When I raised the issue with them, Martin Cullingford expressed surprise that this was the case, and promised to look into it. That was 15 months ago.

I agree that it is hopeless with any composers/conductors whose names are accented in some way (eg Dvorak, has to be sought under Dvolik etc). Therefore, it is better to search using other key words that are likely to be fairly unique to that particular search (eg conductors, soloists, alternative names of works etc).

I am yet another lapsed Gramophone reader but use the archive a lot, despite having 30 years of back numbers in my garage. I now don't feel the need to buy any review mag regularly but did get the recent BBC MM Winterreise issue and the March Gramophone with a very good article by Richard Wigmore on Schubert's last year.
The Archive search works OK most of the time if you learn what kind of words to include and which to avoid. It is sometimes more convenient just to add the word "gramophone" to a Google search. Most cheap-end reissue boxes include no notes at all and the archive is useful for information on the works (especially in older, more detailed reviews) as much as for the comments on the performance.
I have just bought the excellent 5CD box of the French contralto Nathalie Stutzmann singing Schumann. http://www.classicalmusicguide.com/v...p?f=10&t=39381. I immediately consulted Alan Blyths's original reviews on the Archive, which are full of his usual valuable insights.

[Don Petter]

What I'd like is to be able to search under a combination of different categories, e.g. Composer, Work, Genre, Performer, etc., such as you find on the BBC Music Mag or Classics Today websites.

As I recall, that was exactly what the now defunct Gramofile allowed?