Gramophone at 100

[jayne lee wilson]

I am with you on that - the pre-millennial archive is fantastic. But given the unreliable quality and reduced wordage for their main drag reviews these days (and the growth in uncritical, lickspittle "features") I certainly would not buy the current product. They pay their standard reviewers virtually nothing these days, allow them very few words, and of course don't let them keep the CDs for resale (though companies still sometimes provide complimentary copies).

Given the declining reader base none of this is to be wondered at, of course; but how are the mighty fallen! A sad way to pass the 100 mark.

These comments are uncharitable, unfair and above all very inaccurate.
How much of the recent Gramophone have you actually read, or seen? A confirmatory-bias quick flick through at the newsagent?

One of the first things Martin Cullingford did after 2011 was to restore the length of review copy, and introduce longer review articles: Recording of the Month has a full two pages to itself, and boxset reviews are often longer still. Many issues have two or three pages devoted to more specialist reviews - April 2023 has a full page devoted to period instrument Mozart from Egarr and Emelyanychev. If you compare the present reviews to those of the last century you will now find little or no difference in their wordage.
Features like Classics Reconsidered and Collection are always of high quality; Contemporary Composers has joined them in the last few years, with other new features such as Online Concerts and Events (this month the excellent Mark Pullinger). There is so much more to cover now than in "pre-millenial" days. Yet you dismiss all this? Or are simply unaware of it?

Please give some specific examples of "uncritical lickspittle features" from the last few issues (or the last few years); I cannot see any, never have, and I read the magazine closely, online and in print, each month; no trace of any such thing. How easy it is to make such negative comments from behind the veil of social media anonymity!

Such an insulting accusation needs the reference: put your money where your mouth is - please....!

[richardfinegold]

Which makes one wonder why people bother paying for the reviews! Although something like this goes on less visibly in all review magazines, which is one reason why the Gramophone tends to favour British performers. When I was reviewing for The Wire many years ago, I was informed that I'd better not write anything negative about releases on certain labels on account of the amount of advertising space they bought in the magazine's pages. It was an experience that led me not to place too much trust in reviews from then on. But nowadays, as has been pointed out before, the existence of streaming services means that you never need to make a purchase on the basis of a reviewer's opinion. For example, I've found it very enlightening to check out recordings of Janáček's first quartet on the basis of mentions here (which I'm assuming aren't the result of commercial pressures!). So I don't feel the need to wade through all the stuff in the Gramophone that I find annoying, which is most of it. One's mileage may vary of course.

I agree with everything you have said. With respect to Fanfare, there are a few reviewers whom I think refuse to do the pandering, and those are the ones I read, and tend to skip the rest, which is to big of a magazine for me to get through at any rate

[Tevot]

I'm actually listening as I write to a Gramophone podcast about Vaughan Williams' piano music with James Jolly and Mark Bebbington... My memories of Gramophone Magazine date back to the 1970s - my brother bought it regularly and I remember in particular an issue featuring Benjamin Britten's obituary (maybe February 1977?) recalling his love for driving fast cars down very narrow East Anglian lanes. The Magazines were meaty back then weren't they...? and what a roster of critics, Ivan March, Robert Layton, Edward Greenfield, Michael Oliver, Richard Osborne and Arnold Whittall spring to mind. I was a regular reader in the 1980s when I was at Uni.

[Bella Kemp]

It is a glorious and special thing, and those of us who can afford it should certainly renew or take out a subscription. Such magazines not only give savour to our lives but - forgive what might be seen as hyperbole - hold the torch for our increasingly precarious civilisation.

[jayne lee wilson]

It is a glorious and special thing, and those of us who can afford it should certainly renew or take out a subscription. Such magazines not only give savour to our lives but - forgive what might be seen as hyperbole - hold the torch for our increasingly precarious civilisation.

Thankyou for this Bella, thankyou so much....away with cynics, doubters and dismissives......!

MORE MUSIC!....MORE CHAMPAGNE....!

"WHAT WILL SURVIVE OF US
IS LOVE"
(Philip Larkin)

[mikealdren]

The normal cover price is £6.95 and the centenary edition, which is much larger, has a cover price of £9.95.

I started reading in late 60s when I think the price was 1/10d (maybe 2/-). At the time LPs were 39/6d so LPs were about 20* the price of the magazine. How things have changed.

[RichardB]

what a roster of critics, Ivan March, Robert Layton, Edward Greenfield, Michael Oliver, Richard Osborne and Arnold Whittall spring to mind.

In the meantime, the proportion of female contributors (in the April 2023 issue) has risen to a massive 7%. Well done!

[mikealdren]

In the meantime, the proportion of female contributors (in the April 2023 issue) has risen to a massive 7%. Well done!

I wonder whether that represents the readership too, we don't have enough ladies on here either.

[MickyD]

It is a glorious and special thing, and those of us who can afford it should certainly renew or take out a subscription. Such magazines not only give savour to our lives but - forgive what might be seen as hyperbole - hold the torch for our increasingly precarious civilisation.

If I can lay hands on the 100th edition next week when in the UK, it will be an opportunity to look at the magazine after so many years absence. I'm thinking of resubscribing once I retire in a couple of years - up to now I really haven't had the time.

[Mal]

Looking at the subscription options - what's the difference between the "digital archive" and "reviews database"?

I read that the "digital archive" has every word from every magazine since 1923, while the review database only has reviews since 1983. If the archive has "everything" doesn't it mean it also has the reviews? But, surely, it can't mean that - the two options cost the same! Do they have online reviews that don't appear in the magazine?

Would Rob Cowan's "features article" on Rachmaninov's symphonic dances appear in "digital archive", "reviews database", or both, or neither?

https://www.gramophone.co.uk/features/article/rachmaninov-s-symphonic-dances-a-guide-to-the-best-recordings

(You get to read five things a month if you register for free, so (happily...) I can read this...)

[Master Jacques]

It is a glorious and special thing, and those of us who can afford it should certainly renew or take out a subscription. Such magazines not only give savour to our lives but - forgive what might be seen as hyperbole - hold the torch for our increasingly precarious civilisation.

You are very charitable to look at the magazine that way, which does you credit. For me, Gramophone reflects our country's slide into the cultural wasteland, rather than standing as a bastion against decline. For the reasons I've given, neither in intellectual stimulation, nor reviewing rigour, can it hold a candle - let alone a torch - to the ideals its founders put into practice.

The current magazine is more about celebratory hype, less about good criticism.

[Lordgeous]

Well said!

[mikealdren]

As you say, the digital archive has scanned copied of all the magazines so it has everything but they are not searchable and since they no longer publish the index, you can't easily find things. As you say, the database is only from 1983 and I believe that it only contains reviews but it is digitised so you can search it. Rob's article would certainly appear in the archive but, I think, not in the database.

[silvestrione]

You are very charitable to look at the magazine that way, which does you credit. For me, Gramophone reflects our country's slide into the cultural wasteland, rather than standing as a bastion against decline. For the reasons I've given, neither in intellectual stimulation, nor reviewing rigour, can it hold a candle - let alone a torch - to the ideals its founders put into practice.

The current magazine is more about celebratory hype, less about good criticism.

I share JLW's frustration with the repetition of such claims, which do not survive a careful reading.

[gurnemanz]

I share JLW's frustration with the repetition of such claims, which do not survive a careful reading.

Those claims hardly deserved the well-argued and comprehensive refutation that JLW gave them on our behalf.