An awful lot of good CD's missing.
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It certainly must be difficult to cover the vast number of new classical recordings released each year, but as the years have gone by the Penguin Guide has been really struggling to include many very important important issues. Small record companies in particular have suffered from omissions; there really are just too many to start giving examples. One thought that occurs to me- are the authors of the Penguin Guide free to review any CD, or must they only review those discs specifically submitted for review? I think we should be told, and if the latter, some small companies should pull their finger out and get review copies out.
I think the time has come for a two-volume set to do justice to everyone. In the meantime though, there is no doubting the general judgement of the authors (one does disagree on quite a few occasions inevitably), and there is still no real alternative covering anything like the number of recordings. Collectors will still find this an essential purchase.
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Essential reading - highly recommended
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I would happily recommend this book to any lover of classical music. The reviews are invariably fair and accurate, and are useful if one wants to add a new work to one's music collection or buy a different version of another work. For anyone starting to build a classical CD collection the book will prove invaluable.
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A 'Well-loved' but oh dear....
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Of course the CD universe has expanded phenomanally over the years since I started buying this 'indispensable' Guide; and although the Guide too has been considerably enlarged I realise it cannot be completerly comprehensive. But is there any excuse for omitting virtually all the 'younger generation' of composers (mostly now in their later middle-age!) in order to list so many alternatives to the same hackneyed concert warhorse - eg. if only parochially to consider British composers, where are all those excellent recordings by NMC? Or those remarkable Finns - Saariaho, Lindberg, Salonen et al on Ondine & DG. No Sciarrino, no Scelsi, no Ruders - I could go on. I have excellent recordings of all of them in my collection (and all purchased in the UK - no exotic shopping).
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