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Jose Echenique wrote:As for the Penguin guide Rosette I strongly warn against their reviews. According to Ivan March the Karajan DG Carmen is the one to have. They must be completely out of their minds, that is an atrocious recording, and to give it precedence over the Abbado or Solti recordings is quite simply insane, just as silly as giving the Hickox Stabat Mater the Rosette.

I have one Penguin and one Gramophone guide and of the two I prefer the Gramophone however, I find that their recommendations on the Mahler Symphony recordings are characterised by the dominant presence of SSRattle, I simply can't understand or accept that. I find Gramophone good in some and poor in others (to my relatively inexperienced ears, of course).

I must wholeheartedly agree with Pepe here: British reviews must be taken with a pinch of salt, particularly when British performers are the top choice. They also often seem to be prejudiced against certain artists, such as Solti, Pollini and Sinopoli, to name but three.

Remember my rant about the `British Mahler conspiracy' when Building a Library considered Das Lied von der Erde? Lost on a previous incarnation of this forum, I fear!

Ciaran wrote:I must wholeheartedly agree with Pepe here: British reviews must be taken with a pinch of salt, particularly when British performers are the top choice. They also often seem to be prejudiced against certain artists, such as Solti, Pollini and Sinopoli, to name but three.

Remember my rant about the `British Mahler conspiracy' when Building a Library considered Das Lied von der Erde? Lost on a previous incarnation of this forum, I fear!

I do, I remember it well.

Thanks for all the input lads. I've ordered the Myung Whun-Chung recording.

DaveF wrote:Thanks for all the input lads. I've ordered the Myung Whun-Chung recording.

You won´t regret it, it´s just marvelous and the singing of Luba Orgonasova, a Gardiner and Harnoncourt favourite soprano, alone is worth the price of the cd.

Ciaran wrote:I must wholeheartedly agree with Pepe here: British reviews must be taken with a pinch of salt, particularly when British performers are the top choice. They also often seem to be prejudiced against certain artists, such as Solti, Pollini and Sinopoli, to name but three.

Remember my rant about the `British Mahler conspiracy' when Building a Library considered Das Lied von der Erde? Lost on a previous incarnation of this forum, I fear!

Sometimes it´s really maddening with British reviews because often they are the best written reviews in all the languages I can read. Compared to the dreadfully written Spanish reviews in the Scherzo magazine, the Gramophone reviews are almost high literature. It´s just the chauvinism that causes problems, unnecessary if you ask me, because England has produced many outstanding performers the whole World cherish, but Della Jones is no Kathleen Ferrier and Simon Rattle is no Barbirolli or Beecham.

I like many Richard Hickox recordings, especially the invaluable Hummel and Haydn masses, but I honestly think that his soloists in the Rossini Stabat Mater (and the soloists have enormous importance in this work) were a big, big mistake. No problem with the LSO Chorus and Orchestra though.