Roger Hecht ([log in to unmask]) wrote: >D. Stephen Heersink wrote: > >>With all due respect Deryk Barker, an excellent reviewer of classical music >>along with many others on this list, I've tired of Fanfare and American >>Record Guide and have taken a liking to the Penguin Guide. ... > >I agree with all of this and the rest of this message. Penguin is >extremely useful. I've heard it knocked for all sorts of reasons, many of >them unfair. It's difficult to put something like this together and keep >it going, and they've done it. And they are certainly useful if you're >looking for dead-bang comparisions. Well, as one of the chief PG knockers, I feel impelled to reply. My problems with them are severalfold: firstly the amount of sheer repetitive content; I would estimate that something like 75-80% of each new "comprehensive" edition is direfctly reprinted from the previous edition. Secondly, they tend to under-rate historical material very badly indeed. Thirdly, the "rosette" is inconsistent: they specify that it is not a big deal - although they should by now be aware that recording labels use a rosette in advetising as though it were a sort of oscar - simply signifies some special quality of the recording. So why do recordings *lose* rosettes? A good example is Barbirolli's English String usic disc on EMI: used to get a rosette and then a few years ago (with the appearance of the IMHO totally inferior Warren-Green disc). So, did the "something special" vanish in the interim? is there a limited supply of rosettes, so that awarding one to a new issue necessitates removing on from an old? And I also distrst their willingness to 9to borrow a phrase) rush to judgement. A few years back the forward made great play of the new technology used to produce the book, which enabled them to get a review in of a disc they only got hold of two weeks before publication. And to this disc they gave a rosette..... Deryk Barker [log in to unmask]