Customer Reviews
The best there is ..... 
2008-02-15
The 2008 edition of Penguin's Guide to Recorded Classical Music is the definitive guide on the market. No other guide comes close to the wealth of information regarding composers, artists, and quality recordings/DVD choices that are available in this book. The only competition this guide has is The All Music Guide to Classical Music, which possesses a greater degree of scholarship regarding biographical articles concerning the composers and the creative process they employed. The All Music Guide, although informative, is very limited on a range of quality recordings. Buy them both and you can't go wrong.
A worthy successor 2008-02-08
This edition of the Penguin guide to classical CDs is the latest in a long series. It's an excellent guide to what's currently available.
Shame on Penguin Books!!! 
2007-12-25
Like many others, I have been buying the Penguin Guide, and the Gramophone Guide, for many years. Usually I enjoy these CD reviews, even though they become repetitious sometimes. And the "New" listings are getting fewer and fewer.
There are several good reviews on this site, and I certainly enjoyed the reviews written by these knowledgeable people. Penguin Books should pay attention to comments posted by these people, especially regarding the four stars, rosettes, and now the "boxed" key recordings! Suddenly, almost everything has become top notch! It is an overkill. And it certainly diminishes the value of praise for some of these CDs and confuses the reader. Do the four stars trump the rosettes? Or is the other way around?
This is not a review like some of the previous ones on this site. It is simply a comment on what Penguin Books has done to us. First, there are four editors listed on the cover, three of whom are familiar to those of us who have been buying these guide books over a long period of time. The 2008 volume lists Paul Czajkowski on the cover as one of the four principal editors; in the past he had been listed as "Assistant Editor." Yet, inside this volume, while the three editors get lengthy paragraphs, poor Mr. Czajkowski does not merit even a single line until until the "Acknowledgements" section on page xi; and only a 1/2 line there. Who was the proof reader for this volume? Why elevate the man to the cover and not mention anything about his career?
More importantly, shame on Penguin Books for using incredibly cheap, thin paper!!! It is a real trial to read any page without the print on the back of that page protruding into your eyesight. For comparison, I went back to the 2003/2004 edition. Better paper without any print through. And the price was $25.00 then. Now, like the 2005/6 edition, it is $30.00. So for more, we get less!
Not the same, old Penguin 
2007-12-20
I have been a faithful Penguin Guide reader for at least 20 years, and I've learned a lot from it. I bought this most recent edition to get more reviews of SACD's. I'm happy to say that there are quite a few reviews of SACD's, both new recordings and some of the older, remastered stuff. It's good to learn that the staff is keeping up with technological developments, and they are appreciative of what SACD has to offer sonically. In fact, they repeat the same general comments regarding sonics in almost every SACD review, and that could have been avoided to save space.
There are also a lot of DVD reviews, perhaps too many. I am not the least bit interested in DVD, and I expect that many others don't care as much about that format as they do about performances in general. Perhaps the DVD's should be relegated to a separate guide.
This recent printing features larger typeface, which takes up more space and leaves less room for reviews. They have adjusted their previously inadequate rating system by adding another star, which gives a bit more differentiation among levels of approval, but there are so few one and two star entries that the extra level of resolution (more bits, if you will) is largely wasted. If every recording merits three or four stars, why bother adding another one?
In addition to the now well-recognized bias in favor of British labels (EMI does not make the Earth spin on its axis.), artists (The Lindsays are not the best at everything they choose to record.), and even composers (20 pages each for Britten, Elgar, Handel, and Vaughn Williams), there seems to be a disproportionate number of reviews on the Warner/Apex and Virgin labels. In past editions, I remember seeing hardly any listings of these labels, and now there's one or the other for practically every major work! Did Warner recently take ownership of Penguin publishing, or did that label supply a crush of excellent new material that was previously unavailable? I suspect the former.
Despite these quirks, the Penguin Guide remains the most comprehensive, consistent, and trustworthy collection of informed judgments of classical music recordings. If you read between the British lines and ignore the DVD fluff, you can use this guide to build a high quality library of music. They choose very few clinkers, and most of their primary choices are truly the best or among the better versions available. As you listen to the recommended recordings and make a few decisions of your own, you'll be able to educate yourself (and anyone else who might be listening) about the sometimes intimidating array of classical music that is readily available to be enjoyed by anyone who takes the time to do so.
Please help me 2007-12-18
Does anyone know whether any of these guides could be searched on-line? My dad is vision-impaired and can't read the small prints. Thank you!
Penguin classics 2008-06-16
Still a good guide to classic recordings and now includes DVDs, but many of the recordings cited are unobtainable. Reviews now seem to focus on musical integrity and make no mention of the sound quality of the CDs. Still, a lot better than just guessing!
Extremely disappointing 
2008-05-06
I agree with the negative reviews posted here. I have been buying this guide regularly for decades, and look forward to each new issue avidly, despite the ever-lengthening trail of nonsensical statements that have survived cut-and-paste editing as recordings are added or (especially) deleted from the list. I can kind of forgive this particular widespread mess, as the task of editing such a huge volume with less than an army of editorial staff is truly daunting. Despite the ever-worsening series of little faults, it has always been the Gold Standard for serious collectors of classical recordings. But the latest edition has finally toppled over into the mud. For the first time there are fewer entries rather than more compared to the last full edition, and the ax has been wielded completely to several composers. Adios, Alberto Gerhard! The Guide has always been good about covering new recordings very promptly, but this time there are many, many important new issues that have not been included. The bulk is just as great as before, but that is because the space is used up with larger typeface and the introduction of superfluous boxes around chosen recordings. The plethora of distinguishing marks given to different recordings is almost impossible to parse and borders on the comical. Three stars for a fully recommended recording, three stars with a key for "key recordings", now FOUR stars for fully fully fully fully recommended recordings, and four stars with a rosette for, well, gosh, if everything else is so fully extra-special wonderful, these must be guaranteed to change your life. The evaluation process has degenerated into a form of hype. Since almost all recordings that previously received a less-than-three-star rating have been dropped, this leaves this as pretty much a Guide to Recommended Recordings. You might think it is not much of a loss to drop listings of less-recommended recordings, but it was always possible to develop an understanding of the well-marked biases and limitations of the three editors by seeing which kinds of interpretations they tended to give lower ratings, and therefore to compensate for the basic dullness and correctness of their very British critical bias. This strategy is no longer available for readers.
So, after many, many years of excitedly snapping up each new edition, I will probably not be buying any more Penguin Guides to Classical Music. (The sad demise of one of the two editors of the Penguin Guide to Jazz probably puts an end to that wonderful publication as well.) I am seriously disappointed, and, considering the hundreds of hours I have spent with the various editions of this publication, I actually feel I have lost a small corner of my life that has given me a lot of pleasure.
It may be that the Guide is still useful to newer collectors, but it a sad comedown from its own established level.
Classic music lovers' sourcebook gets better and better 2008-05-03
After purchasing The Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings: Eighth Edition (Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings) and being very happy with it, this was an obvious choice for me to start getting a handle on my classical music collection. The book is well organized and attempts to be comprehensive, but given the expanse of classical music available, invariably some of your personal favorite recordings will be left out of this tome. (One of my all time favorites, and a recurring title of many "must have" classical music lists, Mussorgsky: Pictures at An Exhibition was left out, for example.) This volume uses a box summary with symbols and abbreviations that allow them to distinguish certain recordings from others, and it is very useful with a not-too-steep learning curve. Unlike the jazz version, this does not attempt to establish a "core collection", leaving the digging and experimenting to the reader/listener. All in all, anyone who purchases classical music on a regular basis would serve themselves well to have this book handy.
2.5 stars- Not worth buying anymore 
2008-04-20
I'll make this short and sweet. This guide is not worth purchasing anymore because reissues of old recordings are rarely included, plus, a good many of brand new recordings are not included. I really thought the Penguin Guide was superb in the early 90's but no more. When they include the same old recordings they just use the review that they previously did and don't have to write anything new, so they look like they're a bit lazy. If they get their act together one of these days you might want to try them again but I'm sure that will be a good long time in the future.
A shadow of its former self ..... 2008-04-03
Sadly, I have to echo many of the comments above, e.g. those of Econpasha, Larry, etc.
The enthusiasm with which I grabbed the 2008 edition off the shelf (without detailed appraisal of the contents, buying as a previous satisfied customer) was soon displaced by disappointment about how the content has become lightweight. I have bought numerous editions since the 1980's (remember with the HMV dog/horn gramophone on the cover, one edition with a beige cover, another edition pale green?)and have the 2003/04 & 05/06 editions, 06/07 year book as well as this latest one all close at hand.
The improvements in layout and typography (welcome) appear to have been at the expense of serious and wide content. In some ways it seems to be a slightly more detailed clone of the Gramophone Guide. I now use this latest edition for browsing, and for more serious research use the 05/06 + 06/07 yearbook and online reviews at gramophone.co.uk.
All of the above said, I do still prefer the Penguin Guide to the others. Layton, March and Greenfield have provided many good recommendations over the years!!
