The Penguin Guide to Compact Discs and DVDs 2005/06 Edition: The Key Classical Recordings on CD, DVD and SACD, 30th Anniversary Edition

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(4 stars) - A Great Resource If Used in Tandem with Others
This is unquestionably a useful resource for any classical music lover. The scope of material covered here is almost epic, and you have to keep in mind what a huge undertaking this is for the authors. The reviews are generally well-written by respected critics in the field. Even as a newcomer to classical music, I found that this guide came in handy.

That said, I have some reservations about the guide. Mainly two things bothered me. First, some of the reviews in this guide are so short as to be almost meaningless. Often I had to consult Amazon or other online reviews to get a more detailed picture of the recording I was considering. For example, when I considered buying a specific recording of Dvorak's Serenade for Strings and Serenade for Wind, this is all the Penguin Guide would tell me: "The young players give winningly warm and fresh performances of Dvorak's Serenades, vividly caught in the ASV recording". This level of detail is not useful. Because of differences in taste, it helps to know why a reviewer liked it, not simply that it is 'wonderful' or 'fabulous'.

Secondly, I found that there was a tendency not to cover some really great recordings. Some of EMI's great boxed sets were not included in the guide, and there were other important recordings omitted.

In sum, I recommend this guide as a good resource, even for beginners. Their rosette and key system can give beginners a good idea of some of the great recordings, and they also have a helpful list of the best recordings of the century. But don't let this be your only resource.

(3 stars) - The Penguin Guide is a fun read, but not much more
I've loved reading through the Penguin Guide over the years, and I recently picked up this version at a used book store. I still enjoy reading them, but like others have said, it's not quite the same. Also, you can't always believe their recomendations are a sure winner. For example, I love collecting Boyce's Eight Symphonies, and I recently bought Naxos' (2005) version with the Aradia Ensemble, and it was a wonderful recording and far more enjoyable than Trevor Pinnock's version. But, the Penguin Guide (2006/07) gave the Naxos recording just one star, but Pinnock's got three stars. I couldn't agree less!!!

So, it is a fun read and you can find some great recordings through the Penguin Guide, but other times they'll recommend turds. If you are looking for music references, the best thing to do is use many different music guides (Amazon, Gramophone, Third Ear, etc.) and not just the Penguin Guide.

(3 stars) - With Some Reservations
Well, I finally get down to reviewing this great old tome, and I now find that I do not feel the same about it as I did, say 10 years ago. I somehow find this rather sad.

.....Perhaps some comments

I would like to be able to heartily recommend this (or some other) guide to the beginner for help in building a really good, solid collection.

Somehow, over the years, this very good, concise directory to great recordings, has become this massive over-grown, edgy, "way-to-much-information-for-the-novice-collector" book. I think that people starting out are wasting their money, sadly, on this guide...it has become something more valuable for experienced, and Even More experienced collectors. This is my viewpoint on this book at this point.

Good for the Experienced, NOT Good for the Great Unwashed! This book is simply too much money for the beginner to spend for the information that they will actually use out of it....what??, the 100 list in the front two pages???

I do not know, actually, where to send these beginners for help...perhaps the NPR Guide? Or the Rough Guide to Classical Music???

Sorry I cannot be more positive about this book for the general overall public. ~operabruin

(4 stars) - Handy guide for aficionados, but bear in mind its limitations
I'd like to clear up some misconceptions here. The Penguin Guide covers classical music CDs released in Britain since the last edition of the Guide. It's a British publication intended to assist British buyers to sort through what is currently available *in Britain*, so it's silly to complain about "bias". And if every CD of every work ever released was included, the Guide would be unfeasibly large, so limiting it to current releases is a sensible compromise. Yes, some of the verdicts seem wrong, but that's a matter of personal taste (there are some conductors deified by the cogniscenti whom I absolutely *loathe* - but I won't name them here!). Any alleged "inconsistency" is due to the fact that several different reviewers are involved - it would be impossible for one person to write the whole thing.

That said, there are a couple of annoying editorial mistakes here: Pesek's Dvorak cycle is listed but the review is missing. Elsewhere I found a review that hadn't been listed. These things happen, I suppose. Hopefully the next edition will have improved in this respect.

For new-comers to classical music, I would recommend *against* buying this guide. It's a fairly large investment that won't really pay off unless you already know something of the field, and are able to balance the Guide's opinions against your own. Better to occasionally refer to it at the library or in a specialist shop, and take it with a grain of salt.

For collectors, however, this is a great aid (particularly if you can find it cheap), bearing in mind its inherent limitations of nationality, time period and occasional editorial glitch. I often peruse the entries even when not considering a purchase, simply because it's helpful to have other opinions besides my own at hand.

(5 stars) - It's not perfect, but then again, what is?
I have read both poor reviews and great reviews for this guide, but the fact remains no guide book is perfect. They all make some bad choices. For example, I used to subscribe to Fanfare. Some of the reviewers were usually right on the mark; some were not.
So what do you do? You buy one which covers a lot of ground, like the Penguin Guide does, and supplement what you read in the Penguin Guide with reviews on Amazon, Tower (not too much to work with there) and Arkiv and any other sources you may come across, like [...]. I have three recordings of Tosca, the famous mono one of Callas on EMI, the recent one of Georghiu and Alagna, and Maazel's with Nilsson, Corelli and Fischer-Dieskau. The Maazel was not even listed in my '96 edition of the Penguin Guide, although that recording has been around for many years.
How and why did I find it? The Callas is an awesome recording, but it is still in mono. The Georghiu-Alagna has an immediacy suggestive of a deep love, but I have long wanted a performance that was very dramatic and a recording, any, that included both Nilsson and Correlli at their best. I had seen them together at the old Met in Turandot, an experience I have never forgotten. I also wanted to hear Fischer-Dieskau singing a very emotional Italian opera. On Amazon I found a recording that covered all three elements I had been looking for. It was the Maazel recording of Tosca. It also happens to be one of the best things Maazel has ever done.
Does the Penguin Guide help? It directed me to some of the best performances, like Keilberth's Der Freischutz and Giulini's Marriage of Figaro and Don Giovanni, plus many more.
More importantly, the Guide also made me aware of how many good pieces of music there are which I had been unaware of. There are many excellent ways to learn what else is out there, and this is one of them.

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