One hundred years ago the Berlin Philharmonic, under Arthur Nikisch, recorded Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. 
A century of collaboration with Deutsche Grammophon followed, in which some 
of the greatest partnerships between 
a conductor and orchestra – Furtwängler, Karajan, Abbado, to name just three – were chronicled in increasingly impressive sound, helping to forge the mighty reputation of the Berlin Philharmonic.

Their story is our story – that is, for collectors of recordings, DG’s relationship with the Berlin Philharmonic will be an integral part of any library, reference recordings by which others are compared, a legacy to be debated and discussed. But it also represents something wider still: the bond a listener can build with an ensemble, its players and its sound. There have been many fruitful, if shorter, orchestra/label partnerships, and the past decade has seen a proliferation 
of both own-labels (from the likes of the LSO, Hallé, Royal Concertgebouw and the Chicago Symphony) and streaming, not least from the Berlin Philharmonic itself. For many organisations, such approaches have allowed them to build regular, loyal audiences beyond the local region. For the Berlin Philharmonic, it’s business 
as usual, as it has been for a century.

We can’t quite match a century, but 90 years since our first issue, we are about to unveil our 36th Gramophone Classical Music Awards. This year will be a little different: in the September issue you’ll find the top three shortlisted discs in each category, then on August 27 we announced the winning recordings in each category here on our website, and on September 17 we'll reveal the Recording of the Year. Look out for full coverage in our special Awards issue, published the following day. A different schedule – but what hasn’t changed is the months of intense listening and voting by the world’s 
best critics, which is what makes the Gramophone Classical Music Awards 
so prestigious and meaningful.