Is Gramophone Magazine out of date?
Mon, Mar 25 2013, 2:58PM
Feeling somewhat mischevous I googled this topic and was sent to the Amazon site for Gramophone Subscription where I read the following comment from someone presumably a lot younger than me. While it does not reflect my overall sentiment, it does raise some interesting points:
"The legend goes that there was a time a few decades ago when "The
Gramophone" was the unquestioned authority for reviews of recordings of
classical music.
Whether or not that legend is true (I'm too
young to know), Gramophone's time has definitely passed. Today there is
a multitude of sources of free information on classical music on the
internet, from newsgroups to websites. Some of it is less well-informed
than Gramophone's criticism, but some of it is more well-informed.
What is undeniable is that, for the price of a few mouse-clicks, it is
possible to find a far greater range of reviews of recordings on the
Internet than Gramophone (with its British-based critics) can offer.
What
is more, Gramophone is tied to a business-model for the classical music
industry that is fast becoming obsolete. Historically, the most
important classical recordings were issued by a few so-called "major"
companies such as EMI, Deutsche Grammophon and CBS (later Sony). These
"majors" would buy lavish advertising spreads in Gramophone and so
finance the magazine. In return, Gramophone would devote lengthy
reviews to the majors' new releases and would produce pages of fluffy
interviews with musicians under contract to the majors.
Today the
situation is different. The most interesting new release is more
likely to appear as a MP3 on an obscure Russian website than on a new CD
from Sony. Small companies, dedicated solely to classical music
recordings, produce great results on shoestring budgets while the
"major" corporations have virtually abandoned new classical recordings.
This
development causes problems for Gramophone's business model. The new
players in the classical music industry don't have the publicity budgets
to fund a glossy magazine like Gramophone through advertising. With
Gramophone's implicit bargain: "advertise with us or we won't review
your recordings", the magazine seems to be becoming more and more
irrelevant.
If you want to subscribe to a classical music
periodical, I recommend "International Record Review" or "Fanfare".
Both offer substantially more reviews per month than Gramophone. But
most of all, I suggest checking out the huge range of classical music
information available for free on the web and usenet."
Mon, Mar 25 2013, 5:10PM
#2
RE: Is Gramophone Magazine out of date?
I found the comments of the "guy" from Amazon quite superficial and far from the actual situation of what is significant and great in Classical Music and what is not, while the reply by Martin is at least to the point and shows who still has the authority and why to write responsible reviews.
Of course, Gramophone is not the exclusive authority in Classical Music reviews. Provided one can read magazines in other languages, some French, German or even American ones are necessary for a better and more comprehensive picture of what is going on in serious music-making recording business.
In short, Gramophone is still a sure and high authority in Classical Music reviews...and most of the significant new releases are still recorded on (usually rather expensive) CDs, SACDs, DVDs or Blue rays, which are expected to be reviewed.
Parla
Mon, Mar 25 2013, 6:05PM
#3
RE: Is Gramophone Magazine out of date?
I also found the OP's posting 'mischievous' to use his own term. His posting is full of non-sequiturs, and he seems to recommend competitors to Gramophone - who are facing the same problems, however worthy they may be - on no particular logic. Which is not to deny that both G, and the record majors, are not quite where they used to be.
Mon, Mar 25 2013, 6:41PM
#4
RE: Is Gramophone Magazine out of date?
Yes, agreed, mischievous is the word. The world has indeed changed. Gone are the days when there were four or five recordings of a Beethoven symphony to compare. Four or five hundred nearer the mark now. How is an authoritive review possible?
All the more reason though to plead for fuller length reviews. If the Archive has done anything it has served to show up the trend towards shorter, less illuminating reviewing. A good reviewer, and the Gramophone has plenty of these to call on, needs some space to give his report in such a way as to inform the reader what a performance is like. It's not the bottom line that counts but the sort of description that enables a reader to see whether the recording in question is the sort of one (s)he would enjoy. All the best critics have that gift, but they need space to do it. There are plenty of short summaries, snap reviews etc. around, on the internet and elsewhere. Quality still counts. My plea: please give your quality reviewers more space!
Chris
Mon, Mar 25 2013, 11:44PM
#5
RE: Is Gramophone Magazine out of date?
I would tend to support Chris. But I recognise that there's a problem: there is generally a relationship between the number of editorial pages in a magazine and the number of advertising pages. That's a basic commercial reality. The number of advertising pages has fallen, and you just have to look at an issue from the 70s to see by how much - Comet alone often took a dozen, and as for DG in the autumn! So there's a limit to how many pages are available for reviews, and if we want longer reviews (and, yes, I think we do) we have to accept fewer of them. Would we be happy with that?
Tue, Mar 26 2013, 8:31AM
#6
RE: Is Gramophone Magazine out of date?
I don't think I can answer your question, PG, that easily. I believe that all magazines, all over the world, try to cope with the scope of their (noble) tasks within all sort of limitations they are faced with. Gramophone, in this way, is stil doing a fine job and retains the title of a quite good authoritative magazine for reviewing Classical Music recordings.
However, what, nowadays, we need is a source of information in the actual production of new releases worldwide and a selective range of reviews of the apparently more important ones, in all possible fields. A very costly and difficult task, I have to admit. So, for the time being, Gramophone is as good as it stands.
Parla
Tue, Mar 26 2013, 10:40AM
#7
RE: Is Gramophone Magazine out of date?
The problem the Gramophone has is that it relies too heavily on 'the recording industry'. It's claim to be 'The worlds authority on classical music since 1923' is of course ludicrous as (I) It was only a national publication for many years and (ii) It covers fat too little of what is 'classical music' away from recording. The Gramophone is a magazine that has lived off the recording industries rise and domination since 1923. If it want's to die with so many much bigger recording companies, then it is going the right way about it. Classical music isn't dying, and the recording of 'classical music' isn't dead, some large companies have gone and they will lead you to believe that they, like the Gramophone ARE 'classical music', fortunately THEY are not.
Tue, Mar 26 2013, 7:13PM
#8
RE: Is Gramophone Magazine out of date?
PGraber wrote:
"if we want longer reviews (and, yes, I think we do) we have to accept fewer of them. Would we be happy with that?"
I don't believe that is necessarily so, though in any case I wasn't suggesting that all reviews need be long ones. However, looking through the most recent Gramophone, after the contents we find 32 pages of features, 39 pages of first reviews, 2 pages of 'replay' reviews, then a further 8 pages of features. First reviews are now less than half of the text pages. Of course I'm not advocating eliminating the features altogether, but an increase in the proportion of space given to reviews to, say, 60% would achieve what I'm advocating, without any reduction in the review number.
For me it is primarily for the first reviews, and the monthly major comparative review that I read the Gramophone. How do other readers feel?
Chris
Tue, Apr 2 2013, 4:39AM
#9
RE: Is Gramophone Magazine out of date?
The opening Amazon review is puzzling because there are no concrete mentioned references that would support even two thirds of what was said. These Amazon comments seem to be motivated by feelings rather than logic. Gramophone is not an academic journal. I would certainly welcome a non for profit academic journal from the Gramophone staff but that would interest a smaller and specialized portion of the population. I read the reviews for the purpose of buying wonderful CD's and a two paragraph recommendation is fine for that.
Tue, Apr 2 2013, 10:27AM
#10
RE: Is Gramophone Magazine out of date?
As I said a year or so ago in an earlier thread, browsing in the gramophone archive showed many of the older reviews were surprisingly quite short, and of variable quality. Thus I didn't really agree that the reviews have become shorter or of poorer quality in general.
However one thing I do find is that many of the present reviews have poor/inconsistent referencing to other recordings, and this creates the impression they are less rigorous. It used to be that there would be a list of perhaps 4 or 5 reference or reasonably well known recordings (e.g. the ones you might find in the Gramophone Good CD Guide). These days you often just get one or two references to seemingly some random recordings.
Ted
Wed, Apr 3 2013, 3:25PM
#11
RE: Is Gramophone Magazine out of date?
The last Gramophone magazine I bought is out of date, April 1994.
Thu, Apr 4 2013, 10:10PM
#12
RE: Is Gramophone Magazine out of date?
It is true that there is a lot of writing on (classical) music to be found on the internet for free. However, there are two problems here. First of all, when I say a lot, I mean a LOT. And secondly, on the internet, sense and nonsense have the same rights. No one has the time or the gusto to plow through all this. I think a lot of people still yearn for traditional media, because what is presented in them has passed through a filter, as it were. They might not be as central and influential as they used to be, and indeed they will go through changes as the recording industry changes, but I don't think they will ever disapear completely.
Thu, Apr 4 2013, 11:46PM
#13
RE: Is Gramophone Magazine out of date?
Amazon customer reviews are always worth reading. Just ignore the 1 and 2 star ones!
Even better: download for free from one of numerous "sampling" sites and make up your own mind.
Fri, Apr 5 2013, 3:06PM
#14
RE: Is Gramophone Magazine out of date?
I'd politely suggest (and factually state) that the Archive shows that these days Gramophone reviews are often LONGER than they were before, are editorially TIGHTER than they have been, and that there are often MORE of them than in previous periods in the magazine's short- to medium-term history, and that those longer, more multidunious reviews are far better contextualised and illustrated than they ever have been.
Forgive the capital letters - for emphasis rather than voice-raising - but we have been working very hard to deliver MORE quality and quantity to ensure our review-readers are getting oustanding value for money.
Feedback always both essential and welcome, however...
Fri, Apr 5 2013, 4:05PM
#15
RE: Is Gramophone Magazine out of date?
Polite suggestion - Drop the extreme over reliance on the recording industry and become a magazine for all aspects of classical music. I know you will say you cover other aspects and that you are based on ' The gramophone i.e. recordings', but the times they are a changin. maaaaan.
I can assure you - as we have said many times in this forum - that there is absolutely no link, implicit or otherwise, between advertising and coverage in Gramophone magazine. To do so would be to entirely undermine the reputation for objectivity that is the reason classical music collectors buy the magazine. We know that, our readers know that, and the advertisers know that.
This applies to reviews, where we strive hard to make sure the most interesting recordings from the full breadth of the recording industry are represented wherever possible, be that from majors or indies or in-house labels. It also applies to features, such as interviews and session reports, which are again commissioned purely on the basis of whether we think they contribute something to our understanding of music-making.
As to our writers, we pride ourselves on our reviewing roster of renowned experts, many of whom are acknowledged beyond our pages as leading figures in their respective musical fields, all of whom are extremely insightful, erudite and entertaining writers on music. Their ability to contextualise the disc under consideration within the catalogue is also important to us.
Yes, the industry is changing, and downloading and streaming are playing an ever larger role in how artists and labels reach listeners. But this is often a matter of the 'shop', if you will, not the nature of the recording itself. Excellence still comes from the likes of DG and Sony - though they will know their position in the affection of collectors today is only as good as their latest new releases. The situation is also not one of majors, and then the rest. The independent sector for a number of years has released the bulk of new recordings, offering homes to some of the world's finest artists. And as a look at our Gramophone (previously Editor's) Choice recipients, and the winners of the Gramophone Awards themselves, reveals, they have long been every bit as likely to be acclaimed and honoured as releases on major labels are - independently of whether or not they advertise.
Editor, Gramophone