The current edition of this ongoing series now runs at some 1600 pages. Compared to earlier volumes the typeface is a bit smaller and the pages are somewhat thinner, but once again the editors manage to cram in even more material than you might expect. Overall this latest version of the Guide is a wise investment for anyone with a serious interest in classical music, although I should note that recital CDs and some other categories have been left out because otherwise the book would simply have become too big. The editors promise that these omitted categories will re-appear in next year's "Yearbook" edition.

As for the number of CDs featured here, you might well wonder how the editors could ever manage to listen to all the recordings that are included. Well, with each new edition the editors mainly review those releases that have come out since the last Guide. If a CD was featured in the previous edition and is still available, the Guide reprints the review from that edition, often in abbreviated form and occasionally reconsidered in light of the latest competition. I doubt there is much of an effort to listen to every release over again.

The pluses of the Penguin Guide include its easy-to-use format and cross-comparison of performances of the same music. Other guides sometimes stick to what the writer(s) "like" and leave out the unrecommended CDs, which can be unhelpful if you're interested in a particular performance only. The Penguin Guide often will compare the good and excellent versions together along with a couple of bad ones.

Furthermore, the rating system is easy to understand: anywhere from 1 to 3 stars, with recordings of extra merit receiving an additional "rosette" icon.

Due to the huge number of CDs included, the reviews themselves tend to be brief and to the point. This has its advantages and disadvantages. Some readers will want to know more about why a certain performance is considered substandard or the best. Alas, here that kind of detail must be sacrificed, although for me personally this is okay since I often look into multiple review resources when I'm really concerned about investing in a certain CD. It could also be argued that the main benefit of a book like this is the way it compares multiple recordings, as opposed to going into detail about individual ones.

And, as in all matters of opinion and taste, it is inevitable that you'll occasionally be steered wrong by a recommendation. (Personally, I've also been led astray by negative reviews of CDs that I end up liking a lot.) The editors of the Penguin Guide have the unenviable task of trying to offer guidance on a tremendously broad array of recordings that span several genres and styles. It would be impossible for them to please every reader with every review, and so that turns out to be the case here. If this is a concern for you I suggest you do the following before buying: if you have some favorite (or most despised) performances in your collection, look them up in the Guide and see what the editors say about them. Calibrate their response relative to your own. After a few such comparisons you might come away with a better sense of whether this Guide will work for you.

The standard complaints about the Penguin Guide include:

(1) The omission of certain releases. The editors appear to take the approach that if the number of available recordings of a piece is too great, they'll leave out a few of the lesser ones. You're never certain that this is the reason something is missing, though. So, if you discover a certain CD missing from the Guide, you don't know if this is due to it being a lousy performance or if the editors just didn't know about it, or couldn't obtain a copy, etc. Also, as releases go out of print, new editions of the Guide leave them out as well. The problem with this is that the classical market constantly recycles old recordings in new ways, making it very likely that you'll re-encounter these deletions down the road. Plus, the long shelf-life of certain CDs means that you might still find them in your local store long after they have dropped from the catalog, or in a used-CD store.

(2) Unavailability of some CDs in the USA. Since the Penguin Guide is a British publication, it features many releases that you can't find in US stores. The best solution to this problem is mail order, perhaps via the Web. My own favorite resource is the website http://www.mdt.co.uk. Their service and prices are excellent and they don't charge a lot for international postage.

(3) British (or European) bias. It would seem that many of the recommended recordings feature European performers and record companies, and many US-only releases are left out. Well, this is after all a European publication that we should expect to focus on what is available to European shoppers, and much of the tradition of classical music stems from European roots. The editors themselves discuss the question of bias in their foreword to the Guide. Suffice to say, this may or may not bother you. Personally I find that the benefits of the Guide outweigh issues such as this.

So, for a beginner to classical music this is a wise investment. For a more experienced collector the Guide offers some expanded horizons. Browsing through it, I've learned about a lot of music that had previously been unfamiliar. I have discovered some nice CDs this way.

Finally, I recommend that if you buy this Guide and its later editions that you save each volume for future reference. My library includes every Guide from 1984 on. When old recordings are reissued in new packaging I find myself returning to those older editions for guidance.


Recommended: Yes