BBC Music vs Gramophone

[hornteacher]

Well last year I wanted to subscribe to a Classical magazine but couldn't really decide between the two.  So I subscribed to both for a year intending to decide afterwards which one to keep.  Well its been a year and I'm still no wiser.  I haven't really noticed much of a difference between the two.  They usually cover the same things (although sometimes an issue earlier or later than the other one).  I need to renew soon but I'd rather not renew both.  Any opinions welcome on which magazine you prefer (or is there a better one out there)?

[mn dave]

Fanfare 

[scarpia]

If you have read both magazines for a year and haven't formed any opinion about which is better, what difference does it make which one you cancel?  I also don't see how it is to you advantage to subscribe to a magazine because someone else likes it better.

[hornteacher]

If you have read both magazines for a year and haven't formed any opinion about which is better, what difference does it make which one you cancel?  I also don't see how it is to you advantage to subscribe to a magazine because someone else likes it better.

True, I'm just trying to see if there's anything out there I might have missed that someone else may notice.

[Don]

Fanfare 

Yes, Fanfare is much better than BBC or Gramophone.  Concerning the latter two, I'd go with Gramophone - more pages.

[Don]

If you have read both magazines for a year and haven't formed any opinion about which is better, what difference does it make which one you cancel?  I also don't see how it is to you advantage to subscribe to a magazine because someone else likes it better.

Do you ever attempt to be helpful?

[mn dave]

Yes, Fanfare is much better than BBC or Gramophone.  Concerning the latter two, I'd go with Gramophone - more pages.

Yes, Fanfare is sort of like reading the GMG recordings board, except every poster is interesting and has something to say about the music and its background--and there are no pictures, smiley faces or f*cking around.

I'd take Gramophone over BBC if only because it seems less commercial.

[eyeresist]

Apparently in its golden age Gramophone was great, but I've only read it and BBC Music in the last two years, and if anything I would say Gramophone is on a slightly lower level in terms of dumbed-downness and gimmicky articles. With the BBC Music cover CD you get complete works, which I think is a distinct advantage.

[Don]

With the BBC Music cover CD you get complete works, which I think is a distinct advantage.

Same here.  Complete works give the potential for some lasting value.

[mn dave]

Same here.  Complete works give the potential for some lasting value.

Yeah, that's the only thing it really has going for it. I still listen to a Brahms 4 CD from BBC.

[Lethevich]

Same here.  Complete works give the potential for some lasting value.

Thirded (err, fourthed): Gramophone's CD is utter rubbish.

[(poco) Sforzando]

Do you ever attempt to be helpful?

Tosca thought he was, until she realized those guns were shooting real bullets.

[Henk]

I was searching last week for a magazine on classical music. I'm considering to subsribe to Fanfare magazine, though the ideal magazine for me would be with sports, quality news articles (background stuff) and classical music. Wouldn't that be good? Unfortunately such a magazine doesn't exist. Must be a market for it for it to be a international magazine...

Henk

[hornteacher]

With the BBC Music cover CD you get complete works, which I think is a distinct advantage.

That's true.  The "clips" on Gramophone CDs are things I could hear on iTunes.  The full performance CDs of BBC Music are much nicer.

[Renfield]

I seem to disagree with the general consensus, but I do not buy a classical music magazine to listen.

Call me old-fashioned, but I still purchase periodicals with the intend to read them. And towards that purpose, my vote goes for Gramophone, which might not have a tremendous amount of interesting articles, at least these days, but still maintains relatively high review criteria.

(Or, to be precise, it maintains high criteria when one of the numerous obsessions of its editorial staff are not triggered.)

[knight66]

I get the Gramophone, it frustrates me a lot these days. But between it and the BBC mag. I would stick with Gramophone. There are more in-depth reviews. Some of the BBC reviews don't even tell you what is on the disc!

I still buy the BBC mag if there is a specific work on the cover disc I want, for example, this month Walton's Viola Concerto and apart from an Ireland piece a substantial new work by Guto Puw, someone I had never heard of.

Fanfare seems excellent, hardcore and properly informed. I don't get it on a regular basis, but think I might; as Gramophone is just not hitting the spot.

Mike

[Pierre]

I get the Gramophone, it frustrates me a lot these days. But between it and the BBC mag. I would stick with Gramophone. There are more in-depth reviews. Some of the BBC reviews don't even tell you what is on the disc!

As a regular reader of BBC Music I don't recall seeing a review which didn't identify what's on the disc (unless you mean an occasion when the review didn't list all the works recorded, which presumably is due to lack of space). I might have missed this, though. Was there a specific example?

[knight66]

Well, they have the short reviews in sidebars, often utterly useless. These frequently do not list all the works. I don't buy the idea there is no space. Reduce the size of the glossy photos and there would be plenty of space.

P81 this month's edition....."J.S Bach....Toccatas, etc" then 34 words which merely mention several works, useless as both an advert and a review.

P84 this month's edition....."Evgeny Kissin....Music by Schubert, Brahms, JS Bach, Liszt and Gluck"...Then 30 words which only mention the Brahms op116. The reviewer says they are robbed of intimacy, despite which the disc gets four stars! So, what music is on the disc? Am I going to fork out £17.99 to BBC Music Direct on the basis of such inadequate information and contradictory, casual reviewing? No!

On the same page, how about this?
Earl Wilde Liszt recital; I quote, "406 minutes (2 discs)" £29.99. The reviewer, Michael Tanner no less, does not specify any of the music....again, who will buy? Do they even know how many discs they will in fact get if they do?

Are they at all interested in being taken seriously?

I can also recall copying to the site a couple of howlers from the answers in their letter pages. It seemed like whoever was responsible for the page knew nothing about music. I note in this month's edition that apart from letter of the month, only one letter gets any editorial comment; that consists of one line and is not about music. I could delve deeper and come up with more poor copy, but Gramophone indulges in much the same post-it style note pages of news that tell you next to nothing at all.

Both Mags. do have reliable and interesting content, but as I point out above, the BBC one simply gives up much too easily.

Mike

[Pierre]

I understand your point about the Earl Wild (a bit of careless sub-editing there, I suspect), though to the best of my memory (I don't have a copy of the latest issue to hand) those reviews you've cited are those very short items filed under 'In brief': these are usually on reissued recordings, so I suppose the idea is that they are brief notices of recordings which were presumably reviewed at length when they were first released.

It's been a while since I've looked at Gramophone more than a casual flip-through at my local station's newsagents (btw the latest Vaughan Williams issue looks quite poor compared to BBC Music's effort), but my impression is they are similarly brief with historic and reissued recordings, only this time presenting the reviews as a continuous flow of text where you had to hunt for the bits concerning the relevant recording, and again - certainly judging from issues published five years ago (when, IMO, the magazine was rather better quality) - they didn't always list what was on the disc.

[knight66]

You are right in all respects and I really dislike that funneling of some reissues. But from the point of either publication; if the idea is to inform and then help you decide whether or not to part with your money, they fail. I remain of the opinion that G provides a larger number of in-depth reviews, thus, better coverage....but really, it is not vital stuff. Neither would get my vote in terms of sheer quality.

Mike