Geoffrey Gaskell writes:

>Every new Penguin Guide, tends to sell like hot cakes - it is a simple
>fact of life that most collectors would prefer to be spoon fed the "right"
>information to ensure that the content of their collections do not differ
>too radically from a prescribed "orthodoxy".  Who prescribes that
>"orthodoxy"?

Who indeed? As part of the skulking generation for whom Concert Going has
been largely superseded by Solitary CD Playing (why put up with all those
ghastly awful coughing clods who really don't want to be there anyway?)
Geoffrey Gaskell's question is of crucial importance.

The Penguin Guide, marvellously useful in its early days, has turned
into an antediluvian fossil, too closely tied in with outmoded conceptions
and commercial orthodoxy to be much use to man or beast.  It's neither
comprehensive, nor imaginatively written enough to justify its place on the
shelves.  It has become as ossified its dearly beloved old contributors.

Mercifully, the power of the orthodox hard-copy reviews is being quickly
fragmented by burgeoning Internet review sites, discussion groups and
e-commerce outlets inviting purchasers' reviews.

One heartening example.  Claves, a small Swiss company, released a CD
of Jesus Guridi's Orchestral works during 1998 which was neither fully
reviewed nor even given a brief mention in "Gramophone", nor I fancy
will it appear in the latest Penguin Guide.  Guridi was an intensely
conservative composer active from 1920 to the 1950's, and there was nothing
here to frighten the horses, merely some wholly delightful scores and first
class music- making.

The heartening thing is that word got round, through various reviews and
correspondence on the Net, and it became a good seller for Claves.  On the
strength of this EMI, no less, have just issued a mainly-Guridi CD, largely
duplicating the contents of the Claves disk.  And this despite virtually
no hard-copy review coverage in Europe at least.  Good luck to them!

I think the Grand Old Penguin (not to mention The Gramophone) has
some hard thinking to do about the buying tastes of the new CM CD buyer.
Sensible Concert Hall bosses such as John Tusa at the Barbican are also
latching on.  The immense popularity of Vaughan Williams on CD, for
instance, is not yet mirrored in the number of Concert Hall performances,
but in time ...  Given the Naxos Experience, perhaps its Bax not Beethoven,
Martinu not Mozart, that people want on their turntables these days.

If the Concert Halls (never mind the Penguins) want to stay alive, they'd
do well to bear this in mind and improve their coverage of the stuff we
actually seem to be buying!

Christopher Webber,  Blackheath, London,  UK.
http://www.nashwan.demon.co.uk/zarzuela.htm
"ZARZUELA!"