Gramophone at 100

[Belgrove]

Like many here I ceased subscribing to Gramophone when it was owned by Haymarket, and have never felt compelled to renew the subscription. But a centenary edition is noteworthy and something to celebrate. It was tricky tracking a copy down though, no high-street newsagents had it, neither did any vendors at mainline stations other than Marylebone where I finally bagged a copy. It used to be everywhere. It’s proved to be a decent read, ideal for a long train journey with archival features rather than past reviews. Interesting to read the changes in style and taste over the decades. But I’m now confident enough in my own taste and where my musical interests lie not to rely upon the opinions of critics to inform or influence. Nowadays it’s usually enough to see a list of new releases, or to read here, to provoke any new purchases or downloads.

The truth usually lies between extremes, I find. Thus Gramophone is not as egregious as Master Jaques believes, nor as uniformly excellent and rigorous as Jayne claims. Will I buy the occasional issue again, certainly; will I take out a subscription, certainly not.

[Pulcinella]

Like many here I ceased subscribing to Gramophone when it was owned by Haymarket, and have never felt compelled to renew the subscription. But a centenary edition is noteworthy and something to celebrate. It was tricky tracking a copy down though, no high-street newsagents had it, neither did any vendors at mainline stations other than Marylebone where I finally bagged a copy. It used to be everywhere. It’s proved to be a decent read, ideal for a long train journey with archival features rather than past reviews. Interesting to read the changes in style and taste over the decades. But I’m now confident enough in my own taste and where my musical interests lie not to rely upon the opinions of critics to inform or influence. Nowadays it’s usually enough to see a list of new releases, or to read here, to provoke any new purchases or downloads.

The truth usually lies between extremes, I find. Thus Gramophone is not as egregious as Master Jaques believes, nor as uniformly excellent and rigorous as Jayne claims. Will I buy the occasional issue again, certainly; will I take out a subscription, certainly not.

I shall keep my subscription going as it seems reasonable (long-time-membership rate?) at £32.34 for 6 months (though that's printed copy only).
But I'm certainly not in thrall of it, as Jayne seems to be.

[smittims]

Thanks, Mal. I didn't know if I had to pay for the advanced or 'premium' service; I was only browsing after all. And to be fair, Spotify do have some unbroken tracks of whole works.

[Master Jacques]

The truth usually lies between extremes, I find. Thus Gramophone is not as egregious as Master Jaques believes, nor as uniformly excellent and rigorous as Jayne claims. Will I buy the occasional issue again, certainly; will I take out a subscription, certainly not.

Just for the record, to quote one of my earlier critical sallies on this thread:

Not universally, of course there are exceptions, and it would be stupid to pretend otherwise; but there are simply not enough exceptions (for me) to justify the price tag.

So I'm actually in the squeezed middle here. Although I don't find that Gramophone is worth the entry price nowadays, my condemnation is not - and never was - blanket-sized. There are respectable reviewers, and even one or two respectable writers, who loyally persevere in writing for the magazine, despite its diluted vitality and editorial slackness. All power to them.

[Master Jacques]

Gapless playback is available in the advanced settings - that *should* get rid of the short break. I tried and it seems to work... For Abbado/VPO Amazon Music has the same breakdown... The streaming services are probably just following the track breakdown on the CD. Does anyone have the CDs to compare?

I have to say that - sadly, in my experience - 'gapless' on Spotify is more an aspiration than a reality. It 'works' by slicing a tenth or so of a second off contiguous ends of files, so in Wagner (for example) you get continuous playback at the expense of little skips in the music. Streaming on Amazon Music (with its ineradicable gaps) is even more hit and miss, and even less of a pleasure for through-written works divided into CD tracks. I only use it for comparative purposes.

[richardfinegold]

Like many here I ceased subscribing to Gramophone when it was owned by Haymarket, and have never felt compelled to renew the subscription. But a centenary edition is noteworthy and something to celebrate. It was tricky tracking a copy down though, no high-street newsagents had it, neither did any vendors at mainline stations other than Marylebone where I finally bagged a copy. It used to be everywhere. It’s proved to be a decent read, ideal for a long train journey with archival features rather than past reviews. Interesting to read the changes in style and taste over the decades. But I’m now confident enough in my own taste and where my musical interests lie not to rely upon the opinions of critics to inform or influence. Nowadays it’s usually enough to see a list of new releases, or to read here, to provoke any new purchases or downloads.

The truth usually lies between extremes, I find. Thus Gramophone is not as egregious as Master Jaques believes, nor as uniformly excellent and rigorous as Jayne claims. Will I buy the occasional issue again, certainly; will I take out a subscription, certainly not.

I’m with Belgrove, Pulcinella, and M.J.I enjoy reading it, mainly for the retrospective and for the articles about contemporary composers, and it has introduced me to a few of the latter. I find a substantial percentage of the reviews to be insubstantial, so it’s a mixed bag. I definitely enjoy it more now than under the previous editor. I will keep the subscription going for now.

[Mal]

Thanks, Mal. I didn't know if I had to pay for the advanced or 'premium' service; I was only browsing after all. And to be fair, Spotify do have some unbroken tracks of whole works.

I have the premium service, so it might be just a premium feature. Also, it might only be available in the app, and not in the web.

They usually have a free trial period if you want to explore the advanced features. They have things you might not expect and could be very useful for particular users - a quite decent equaliser, libretto that follows the music (in some pieces), and (most importantly...) Spotify Connect - makes controlling active speakers from your computer/phone/tablet very easy and sets up a strong & direct connection (via ethernet...) from your router to active speakers that makes for a very stable & high quality connection (in my experience at least...)

Spotify has very few unbroken tracks of whole works. For instance, symphonies are broken into "the usual" four tracks. If it's a tone poem with one movement, then you usually get the whole work on one track. I think they just copy the track structure from the CD source.

I have CDs that break operas down into many tracks of three minute "songs". Isn't this a good thing? Shouldn't people have easy access to particular sections they want to hear? As long as gapless playback is present... and that might depend on having a high quality CD player (or decent streaming service...)

[smittims]

Well, as long as one has the option to hear the thing uninterrupted then yes, breaking it into sections may be helpful for those who want to find a bit in the middle. I suppose I've always preferred to hear a work all the way through; for instance, I was dismayed to see some CD labels (Hyperion for example) divide, say, a 20-minute tone poem into nineteen tracks , all referred to one by one in the notes. I don't think it's fair to the composer to play just 'the little phrase' repeatedly until one tires of it and then say 'that work was boring'.

[Mal]

Well, as long as one has the option to hear the thing uninterrupted then yes, breaking it into sections may be helpful for those who want to find a bit in the middle. I suppose I've always preferred to hear a work all the way through; for instance, I was dismayed to see some CD labels (Hyperion for example) divide, say, a 20-minute tone poem into nineteen tracks , all referred to one by one in the notes. I don't think it's fair to the composer to play just 'the little phrase' repeatedly until one tires of it and then say 'that work was boring'.

Amazon Music not-Unlimited now only allows you play in shuffle mode. Imagine listening to a 19 track tone poem, or Opera, shuffled! I just tried playing the Magic Flute and it shuffled the priest choir to the front, gave no indication which track was next, and said the album has been shuffled with other songs...

OK, Amazon wants you to Upgrade to Unlimited, but I'm refusing to do so because this "shuffle sampling" idea is so bad - you can't sample anything in a sensible manner. Their old system was much better - OK, you couldn't listen to every Magic Flute in not-Unlimited, but you could sample some "reasonable" recordings and see if Amazon lossless agreed with one, and if it worked properly on one's systems.

[Sir Velo]

OK, my copy of the centenary edition has arrived. First thoughts are that it is not as fat as one would expect for a celebratory edition with 100 years of history to commemorate, or for the princely sum of £9.95.

I can at least report that pace Master Jacques' stringently expressed view of the quality of its sub editors at least they haven't fallen foul of the current craze for inserting a grocer's apostrophe into their decade by decade review (eg "1930's"/"1980's" etc) (sic), so at least one's Blood Pressure isn't sent through the roof on that score!

[smittims]

Thanks for posting that illustration. It reminds me that the 50th anniversary edition in1973 included a facsimile of the first issue from 1923 and very interesting reading it was too.

[silvestrione]

There lies the rub. "Free internet" reviews lack the kind of quality control one expects from a publication coming in at £6.95 per month.

Another concern, browsing through the March 2023 issue, is this very question of editorial control. I don't expect to turn to a review claiming to be "an album of early Spanish music", only to find that it is an album of Italian, French and Flemish music, without one Spanish note in it. I don't expect to turn to a comparative review of "The Magic Flute on Film", which fails to make any reference to Ingmar Bergman's film version of the opera (a classic by any standards, and a totally baffling omission, presumably because it's 'only' in Swedish!)

I don't blame the reviewers: this is the sub-editors and editor falling asleep on the job.

I did not intend to return to this subject, but having my March issue back from a friend, I was intrigued to find these examples. And I cannot find the review of 'an album of Spanish music' without one note of such music. Did you mis-read the opening of the review of 'Eros & Subtilitas' ('Spanish early music ensemble Tasto solo...' it is never suggested they are playing Spanish music)?

And, for The Magic Flute, I draw folks' attention to the 'Selected' in the 'Selected Discography', and, specifically in the section on film, the opening of the paragraph: 'This highly selective survey allows space for only a handful of DVD recordings...' Richard Wigmore, working within constraints, has made his choice, and he is an experienced and capable critic. I also was surprised there was no reference to the Bergman, but I find no evidence of sub-editors or editors falling asleep on the job.

[Master Jacques]

I did not intend to return to this subject, but having my March issue back from a friend, I was intrigued to find these examples. And I cannot find the review of 'an album of Spanish music' without one note of such music. Did you mis-read the opening of the review of 'Eros & Subtilitas' ('Spanish early music ensemble Tasto solo...' it is never suggested they are playing Spanish music)?

Take a look at the section header, where the Spanish music is promised, but not delivered. Thus my blame for the sub-editor who misread the review in exactly the way you describe.

And, for The Magic Flute, I draw folks' attention to the 'Selected' in the 'Selected Discography', and, specifically in the section on film, the opening of the paragraph: 'This highly selective survey allows space for only a handful of DVD recordings...' Richard Wigmore, working within constraints, has made his choice, and he is an experienced and capable critic. I also was surprised there was no reference to the Bergman, but I find no evidence of sub-editors or editors falling asleep on the job.

The section is headed "Flute on Film", and in fact it doesn't mention one single film of the opera. It mentions a handful of video performances, which is not quite the same thing. It's an editor's job to read long articles such as this, and gently point out obvious omissions (like the Bergman masterpiece). This is the equivalent of reviewing films of Oliver Twist, without mentioning David Lean's classic.

[Ein Heldenleben]

Take a look at the section header, where the Spanish music is promised, but not delivered. Thus my blame for the sub-editor who misread the review in exactly the way you describe.


The section is headed "Flute on Film", and in fact it doesn't mention one single film of the opera. It mentions a handful of video performances, which is not quite the same thing. It's an editor's job to read long articles such as this, and gently point out obvious omissions (like the Bergman masterpiece). This is the equivalent of reviewing films of Oliver Twist, without mentioning David Lean's classic.

Particularly irritating for pedants is the fact that , unusually , the Bergman Flute is shot on film at great expense whereas the DVDs will almost certainly be shot multi camera on video.

[silvestrione]

Take a look at the section header, where the Spanish music is promised, but not delivered. Thus my blame for the sub-editor who misread the review in exactly the way you describe.


The section is headed "Flute on Film", and in fact it doesn't mention one single film of the opera. It mentions a handful of video performances, which is not quite the same thing. It's an editor's job to read long articles such as this, and gently point out obvious omissions (like the Bergman masterpiece). This is the equivalent of reviewing films of Oliver Twist, without mentioning David Lean's classic.

OK, points taken, thanks.