Gramophone at 100

[Braunschlag]

Gramaphone - it’s really not what it used to be at all. Short reviews, ‘all shall win prizes’ and let’s not even go near the Hatto Hoax.

[Master Jacques]

[...] The likes of EG, RL, IM, MEO, JBS, JC and JS haven’t been replaced but how could they be?! [...]

Alison, those few initials say it better than I have. Outstanding professionals, of high literary quality and musicological pedigree. With great respect, it is hard to see any of the current roster making it into the Dictionary of National Biography, as JBS recently did - perhaps soon to be joined by RL. (EG, IM and MEO were shortlisted also, to my knowledge.) And that's without going far back to such national luminaries as Shawe-Taylor, Sackville-West and of course Compton Mackenzie himself.

The journal could once proudly proclaim itself, "The world's authority on classical music since 1923" on every front cover. That disappeared some while ago!

[Ein Heldenleben]

Gramaphone - it’s really not what it used to be at all. Short reviews, ‘all shall win prizes’ and let’s not even go near the Hatto Hoax.

You mean the hoax that Gramophone exposed through meticulous journalism ?

[Pianoman]

You mean the hoax that Gramophone exposed through meticulous journalism ?

Yes lots of critics were taken in but you'd expect G's resident piano 'experts' Bryce Morrison and Jeremy Nicholas to have been a bit more circumspect when they lauded every single disc ! I mean, alarm bells were sounded all over other piano forums but Joyce's discs kept being Gramophone 'disc of the month'....

[Bryn]

You mean the hoax that Gramophone exposed through meticulous journalism ?

It should also be recalled that the recordings doctored were all of very fine, if not widely known, interpretations.

Were it not for Barrington-Coupe's use of it, I might not have got to hear Paul Kim's Messiaen recordings:

http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2007/mar07/Messiaen2_kim_crc2627-8.htm

[Alison]

It should also be recalled that the recordings doctored were all of very fine, if not widely known, interpretations.

Were it not for Barrington-Coupe's use of it, I might not have got to hear Paul Kim's Messiaen recordings:

http://www.musicweb-international.co..._crc2627-8.htm

Yes, a good reminder, Nethers.

[Wolfram]

Agreed but it’s almost induced me to buy a copy to see what the fuss is about. An entirely pointless activity as I am banned from buying CD’s and indeed books save on the one in / one out principle.

I try to adhere to this rule too. But like a diet, no matter how well intentioned, it is all self-delusion, doomed to failure before it has even begun.

[mikealdren]

Of course the digital archive is searchable and the search works well. I'm in there often several times a week, searching for reviews and Collection Articles and so on - which I usually find.

https://papyrus.exacteditions.com/magazines/365/issues/

That is the page I see when I log on, with rows of monthly covers, as a subscriber on a MacBook. The search is at top right of the page. So you can indeed search for everything ever published in Gramophone there. (If you are not subscribed, use iOS or another tablet....YMMV...)

You can find every edition on line as you show in the link but I don't see how you search the content, I'd love to know how.

[Ein Heldenleben]

I try to adhere to this rule too. But like a diet, no matter how well intentioned, it is all self-delusion, doomed to failure before it has even begun.

I’ve managed to stick to it more or less. There are some books only available in hardback / paperback e.g. some Collins New Naturalists , some Arden Shakespeare , the odd sixties novelist and of course some music scores which are exempt from my rule obviously . But if it weren’t for the ebook I’d be well into shelving in a back room.
Back on thread - Gramophone in Libby ebook edition used to be borrowable from our local Council e library but sadly no more .

[Mal]

Of course the digital archive is searchable and the search works well. I'm in there often several times a week, searching for reviews and Collection Articles and so on - which I usually find.

https://papyrus.exacteditions.com/magazines/365/issues/

That is the page I see when I log on, with rows of monthly covers, as a subscriber on a MacBook. The search is at top right of the page. So you can indeed search for everything ever published in Gramophone there. (If you are not subscribed, use iOS or another tablet....YMMV...)

So that's me back to square 1!

What does the "reviews database" offer above the "digital archive"? Do you have the full subscription?

I have now paid for the "reviews database" subscription but it still will not let me in!

Support have gone for Easter...

[Mal]

You can find every edition on line as you show in the link but I don't see how you search the content, I'd love to know how.

Does anyone subscribe to just the "digital archive" and not the "reviews database"? If so, is searching for reviews as difficult as Mike suggests?

If you let google search for "symphonic dances kondrashin", near the top, you see:

https://www.gramophone.co.uk/review/rachmaninov-the-bells-symphonic-dances-1

Click on that and you are asked to subscribe to "reviews database", so I did that.

I suspect that full subscribers will also get access to this database, but "digital archive" subscribers will not... but who knows? It's all very unclear! Gramophone need to make subscription a lot more transparent...

[richardfinegold]

I try to adhere to this rule too. But like a diet, no matter how well intentioned, it is all self-delusion, doomed to failure before it has even begun.

[mikealdren]

Does anyone subscribe to just the "digital archive" and not the "reviews database"? If so, is searching for reviews as difficult as Mike suggests?

If you let google search for "symphonic dances kondrashin", near the top, you see:

https://www.gramophone.co.uk/review/rachmaninov-the-bells-symphonic-dances-1

Click on that and you are asked to subscribe to "reviews database", so I did that.

I suspect that full subscribers will also get access to this database, but "digital archive" subscribers will not... but who knows? It's all very unclear! Gramophone need to make subscription a lot more transparent...

Just tried the search, not sure how I didn't see and it works a treat, thanks Jayne.

[Ein Heldenleben]

I found early copies of The Gramophone on the Internet Archive including this poem in the Nov 1923 edition written by the great Irish Doctor, Politician and sometime poet Oliver St John Gogarty- immortalised as Buck Mulligan in Joyce’s Ulysses ( and later indeed in a Temple Bar pub). The poem is a meditation on how voice recording has transformed death and life.
I’m just quoting the first and middle verse as the layout of the Gramophone doesn’t lend itself to copying.



“Verses to the Editor of the Gramophone By Oliver St. John Gogarty.

The immemorial decency of Death
Was silence ; but it is no longer true:
For who can say now * With his latest breath
He parted,” when his words thou canst renew ?
Aye ; and canst make them last and later, latest,
When on his record with thy “ style ” thou gratest,
Bringing Life's platitudes back o’er the Border ?
The rest is—” What? Implacable Recorder. “

Nice quibble on style . He later uses Gramophone as a verb / gerund

“Think,, in those States, so much worse than the first,
How cheerful will the graveyards soon become
With epitaphs that into song will burst,
Making a noisy nightmare of the tomb ;
When every vault, endowed for gramophoning,
_ The records of the dead will keep intoning ;
Telling, perchance, how poppa swelled the till
In quaint redundant Copperanopolisville.”

Not the worlds greatest poem but quite possibly the very first ode to vinyl (or shellac I guess)

[Mal]

Just tried the search, not sure how I didn't see and it works a treat, thanks Jayne.

I think I might have sussed out how the different Gramophone subscriptions work, and what's gone wrong with my subscription.

First thing to note:

There are two different search boxes!

All pages have a search box that gives you everything *except* reviews. The reviews page (https://www.gramophone.co.uk/reviews) has this search box, but also has a reviews specific search box.

From a feature article you may be encouraged to "read the review". But if you only have the digital archive subscription you will not be allowed to read the review.

In my case, I think Gramophone have given me a Digital Archive subscription instead of the Reviews Database subscription (I think this because I can read all the features, blogs, etc without limit...)