BaL 6.03.21 - Debussy: Études pour piano

[Bryn]

I started my subscription to The Gramophone in 1963, to my best recollection. I took it for a couple of years, removing all the advertising pages prior to filing. These advertising pages ran through the staples as full sheets, so no hanging pages were left behind. Very occasionally, the other side of the staples would reveal a thin sliver of a page due to the lack of advertisements to pair up with. Sadly, I have not kept my slimmed-down copies from that era. I have a vague recollection that the advertising and editorial pages may have been numbered by separate systems.

[Richard Barrett]

Just a slight problem with this....for the last 5 or 6 years, the Gramophone

... yes, I know, and they review most of my CDs in fact, but I was making the point that that it really isn't necessary, when you can just listen to everything! - and that the fact that critics have much less influence than they used to is a good thing. I really don't care what this magazine or any other has written in recent years.

[Goon525]

... yes, I know, and they review most of my CDs in fact, but I was making the point that that it really isn't necessary, when you can just listen to everything! - and that the fact that critics have much less influence than they used to is a good thing. I really don't care what this magazine or any other has written in recent years.

But you can’t just listen to everything, not if you do other things in your life apart from listening to music. So if you can suggest a better way of deciding what to hear, and what not to hear, than reading reviews written by a team of experts whose opinions you trust (or perhaps don’t, but at least you know you don’t), could you let me know what it is?

[Goon525]

I started my subscription to The Gramophone in 1963, to my best recollection. I took it for a couple of years, removing all the advertising pages prior to filing. These advertising pages ran through the staples as full sheets, so no hanging pages were left behind. Very occasionally, the other side of the staples would reveal a thin sliver of a page due to the lack of advertisements to pair up with. Sadly, I have not kept my slimmed-down copies from that era. I have a vague recollection that the advertising and editorial pages may have been numbered by separate systems.

I mentioned earlier in this thread that my G reading started in 1973. By then there was no such separation between editorial and ads. As I can access the entire back library on my iPad, I suppose I could hunt through and see where the format changed.

[Bryn]

I mentioned earlier in this thread that my G reading started in 1973. By then there was no such separation between editorial and ads. As I can access the entire back library on my iPad, I suppose I could hunt through and see where the format changed.

I suppose it would not take that much searching back and forth to home in on it.

[Barbirollians]

I suppose it would not take that much searching back and forth to home in on it.

I think Gramophone has recovered its mojo in recent years . The dreadful editorship of Jane’s inverse nearly destroyed the magazine and I stopped subscribing. I still miss IRR.

[Wolfram]

I still miss IRR.

Oh! absolutely.

[visualnickmos]

But you can’t just listen to everything, not if you do other things in your life apart from listening to music. So if you can suggest a better way of deciding what to hear, and what not to hear, than reading reviews written by a team of experts whose opinions you trust (or perhaps don’t, but at least you know you don’t), could you let me know what it is?

You could go with your intuition, which develops very early on in one's active interest in listening - a sort of spiral effect starting from the centre, and working outwards.

[Richard Barrett]

I seem to have opened a family-size can of worms here just by asking why Mitsuko Uchida's recording of these pieces seems to be assumed to be head and shoulders better than any others and getting the answer that it might be just because the critics say so. Which seems to me a symptom of the undue influence critics have had. There used to be a time when I enjoyed reading record and CD reviews, even if I might often find them annoying for one reason or another, but these days they don't interest me at all, and I think the main reason is that I don't think I need them. Others clearly differ in this, and nobody is right or wrong.

[Pulcinella]

I seem to have opened a family-size can of worms here just by asking why Mitsuko Uchida's recording of these pieces seems to be assumed to be head and shoulders better than any others and getting the answer that it might be just because the critics say so. Which seems to me a symptom of the undue influence critics have had. There used to be a time when I enjoyed reading record and CD reviews, even if I might often find them annoying for one reason or another, but these days they don't interest me at all, and I think the main reason is that I don't think I need them. Others clearly differ in this, and nobody is right or wrong.

A similar situation might obtain for the following week (Alpie may well be struggling to compile the list of contenders in some sensible form!) when the piece under consideration will be Ravel's Introduction and Allegro. The Melos Ensemble's first (Decca) recording is the one that seems to be universally praised. Much as I adore it, I'll be intrigued to find out if it really is THAT much better than other versions.

[vinteuil]

There used to be a time when I enjoyed reading record and CD reviews, even if I might often find them annoying for one reason or another, but these days they don't interest me at all, and I think the main reason is that I don't think I need them. Others clearly differ in this, and nobody is right or wrong.

... I think that many of us listen with interest to Building a Library - but often find that it is not necessarily the critic's "winner" which clicks with us, but one of the other performances discussed and discarded. It is the opportunity of sampling half-a-dozen interpretations which is of interest rather than a critic's individual take.


.

[Ein Heldenleben]

I seem to have opened a family-size can of worms here just by asking why Mitsuko Uchida's recording of these pieces seems to be assumed to be head and shoulders better than any others and getting the answer that it might be just because the critics say so. Which seems to me a symptom of the undue influence critics have had. There used to be a time when I enjoyed reading record and CD reviews, even if I might often find them annoying for one reason or another, but these days they don't interest me at all, and I think the main reason is that I don't think I need them. Others clearly differ in this, and nobody is right or wrong.

I can think of a whole raft of pianists that the critics rave about but leave me cold. There can be a groupthink amongst critics that discourages dissent. No one wants to be in the position where a company PR with a lot of ad money to spend hints to an editor that journalist x is out on a limb. That said I don’t think it applied to the Ted Greenfields - they have acquired enough authority not to worry. It is I suspect ( I hope really though I have no evidence one way or the other save for a career in journalism) much less of a problem with music magazines than motoring or travel is when a publication is highly dependent on advertising for its revenue.It is a very big problem in those trades believe me.
Getting back to the pianists It’s not that they haven’t got amazing technique it’s just I don’t like the sound they make when they fingers hit the keys . The other problem isn there are so many piano recordings which are not very good . I should add I do like Uchida very much indeed..

[mikealdren]

I think Gramophone has recovered its mojo in recent years . The dreadful editorship of Jane’s inverse nearly destroyed the magazine and I stopped subscribing. I still miss IRR.

Totally agree.

[Roslynmuse]

I think Gramophone has recovered its mojo in recent years . The dreadful editorship of Jane’s inverse nearly destroyed the magazine and I stopped subscribing. I still miss IRR.

I was puzzling over Jane's inverse for a while thinking it was a coded message before realising it was predictive text's version of James Inverne!

Coffee really does help get the brain started of a Sunday morning...

[cloughie]

I was puzzling over Jane's inverse for a while thinking it was a coded message before realising it was predictive text's version of James Inverne!

Coffee really does help get the brain started of a Sunday morning...

I wondered who Enaj or Senaj and could only think of keys with speech impediment!