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
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