Penguin Guides

[Parry1912]

I've still got my ones (selected issues from 1977 to 2009). They don't get as much attention as they used to (largely because of the Gramophone Archive) but I would be loath to part with them if only for nostalgic reasons.

[Dave2002]

The Penguin Guides' influence gave birth to a least two critical shibboleths:

Do you really mean shibboleths?

[visualnickmos]

My guide is my ears.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

My guide is my ears.

Well, indeed - but there isn't time to listen to every new release and a little help is very useful as a filter. There are artists whose work generally I have no time for, so it is useful to have access to comments from others whose opinions I have generally agreed with in the past, pointing out that maybe - just maybe - this time they'll convince me that they're worth listening to.

[waldo]

He got the nod on Parsifal when it should have been Kubelik and was favoured with a few others similarly, but this was more than off-set by the puzzling downgrading of his Brahms.

But wasn't there a problem with the Kubelik? Recorded in 1980, it was shelved for ages, only coming out much later on a small label - and then it quickly became unavailable. Unless I am wrong about this, I can see why it might have been overlooked.

[visualnickmos]

Well, indeed - but there isn't time to listen to every new release and a little help is very useful as a filter. There are artists whose work generally I have no time for, so it is useful to have access to comments from others whose opinions I have generally agreed with in the past, pointing out that maybe - just maybe - this time they'll convince me that they're worth listening to.

Very true - and I fully understand and accept your points. I suppose what I really mean is that after 'filtration' it is the final taste that I'm referring to. I do often like to gather a few opinions from those I value (on here, for example) I used to have a friend who was a Penguin Guideophile, and on the many occasions that I dipped into it, felt not really much the wiser for having done so! "If it ain't HvK, it ain't much!" was my one of my thoughts... not that HvK didn't make many good recordings; he certainly did, but I expect you see my point. I think the PG seemed to take a rather narrow line in its critiques... just my opinion, that's all.

[cloughie]

I'd give a Golden Guinea for them.

Weren't they 22/6?

[Alison]

For the new edition out this Autumn I nominate three new editors

Ferneyhoughgeliebte - for intellectual rigour and a wide knowledge of the repertoire

HighlandDougie - for never having personal axes to grind as well as being an impeccable judge

Beef Oven - for those fibrous individual nuances and being the collectors champion

Any chance of these three agreeing? Might need Waldo as consulting editor.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

... what I really mean is that after 'filtration' it is the final taste that I'm referring to.

I think the PG seemed to take a rather narrow line in its critiques... just my opinion, that's all.

Mine, too - and this is understandable with just three contributors all with rather similar viewpoints on a rather limited repertoire (weaknesses that became increasingly apparent as the tears went on). I think that they themselves were aware of this, and it wasn't their fault that what was intended as simply a Guide through the many available different recordings became treated as "Holy Writ" by some readers (encouraged to do so by the blurbs with vocabulary such as "definitive" splattered on the cover by the publishers). Funnily enough, I detected a distinct "Karajan-scepticism" rather than the "If it ain't Herbie, it ain't much" you sensed.

[visualnickmos]

Funnily enough, I detected a distinct "Karajan-scepticism" rather than the "If it ain't Herbie, it ain't much" you sensed.

That maybe just my impression from the bits I looked at over the years... and maybe there were some years when HvK was more "in" than other years, as the guides did run for quite a few years, and there was perhaps more than a hint of bowing to current musical fashion? A never-ending question!

[visualnickmos]

For the new edition out this Autumn I nominate three new editors

Ferneyhoughgeliebte - for intellectual rigour and a wide knowledge of the repertoire

HighlandDougie - for never having personal axes to grind as well as being an impeccable judge

Beef Oven - for those fibrous individual nuances and being the collectors champion

Any chance of these three agreeing? Might need Waldo as consulting editor.

The day we all agree, we might as well give up.

[Alison]

I suppose the point I am making is that it must have been hard for three critics to come together to produce the one volume. An achievement not be underestimated I feel.

[vinteuil]

Beef Oven - for those fibrous individual nuances ...

... Beefy and his fibrous individual nuances! Poor man - wot will they say to him in the pub tonite???

.

[MickyD]

Does anyone find that they can still quote some of those reviews virtually verbatim?

I thought it was pretty invaluable when I first started listening - the fact that i didn't entirely understand it probably helped me in my quest to understand more (the same went for the R3 of the time, with its somewhat sombre and definitely not gladhanding presenters - Richard Osborne, for example).

I can remember being very impressed with Jess Thomas in the Karajan Siegfried, only to find that the Guide slammed his performance. In retrospect, they were being harsh but (probably) fair.

In answer to your first question, indeed I can...it was about the Harnoncourt Monteverdi "Orfeo" set. I can't recall who said it, but I remember reading that the music 'might almost be by Stravinsky, so sharply do the sounds cut'. Little did that reviewer realise what was to come!

[cloughie]

For the new edition out this Autumn I nominate three new editors

Ferneyhoughgeliebte - for intellectual rigour and a wide knowledge of the repertoire

HighlandDougie - for never having personal axes to grind as well as being an impeccable judge

Beef Oven - for those fibrous individual nuances and being the collectors champion

Any chance of these three agreeing? Might need Waldo as consulting editor.

I don't think that agreeing has necessarily got to come into it and I'd probably disagree with Beefy from time to time!