My wife and I are serious classical music nuts, with well over 10,000 items in our collection and a custom database cross-linked to published reviews to keep track of it all. Weve studied musicology and published quite a few classical reviews. The problem with ANY recommendation from ANY expert source is that the reviewers personal preferences (or biases) arent YOUR personal preferences.
Fanfare, Gramophone and Penguin Guides can be helpful but for decades they have been biased towards selling new releases. Gramophone and Penguin are shamelessly nationalistic and some of the long time Fanfare reviewers are quirkier than any audiophile tweaker. Until you become familiar with their biases you will most likely get a decent performance but not one that you personally would find the best. None of these magazines is particularly concerned about the quality of the sound. The PBS and old Freed Basic Repertoire lists are also very biased and limited although any Basic Repertoire list is a decent place to start. If you like a particular piece try to listen to multiple recordings that way you will quickly develop YOUR own preferences as to conductors and performance styles.
Subscriptions to Gramophone and Fanfare are indispensable for serious collectors (my Gramophone collection goes back to the invention of the LP). This is overkill for most classical music listeners. Most basic repertoire pieces have been recorded almost 200 times. For most pieces, a cross section of classical music fanatics, would probably agree on somewhere around 5-10 must hear or outstanding performances and list of another 10+ or so performances that are worth the time to listen to. That would be the extent of their agreement.
As a place to start for advice on CDs, I recommend the Classical Digest site:
http://www.classicaldigest.com/. It aggregates the recommendations of multiple review sources and pretty much serves up the recommendations in the format I described above. (Their only real shortcoming is in dealing with historical recordings). For a casual classical music listener I wouldnt quarrel with choosing any of the Top 20choices on Classical Digest as a personal favorite. You can also read the Gramophone reviews online at their site but only experience hearing a few hundred recordings can clarify your own preferences.
Vinyl is more problematic; I have been buying classical LPs since 1963 onward. I have thousands. The quality of pressing has always been a topic for heated discussion among collectors going back to the invention of the 78. There have been many superb performances that are almost impossible to find on good vinyl. Most have been remastered on CD. Let me be clear that while a superb analog recording, expertly and carefully mixed, cut and pressed will always sound better than if it were remastered to Redbook CD, however, for many classical LP issues expertise and care were lacking and the CD is a better overall choice. Some of the Vinyl reissues have an overall sound that is NOT what the originals sound like.
Audiogon has quite a few members who are very knowledgeable about classical music recordings. Classical music threads of the please recommend a good recording of get good responses and good recommendations. The Audiogon threads can also give you opinions on sound quality and opinions on the relative sound quality of Vinyl pressings and their various CD reissues.
The great thing about classical music is that there now are sufficient recordings worth listening to that you cant exhaust them in a lifetime of listening. The bad thing is that you will never hear them all.
Fanfare, Gramophone and Penguin Guides can be helpful but for decades they have been biased towards selling new releases. Gramophone and Penguin are shamelessly nationalistic and some of the long time Fanfare reviewers are quirkier than any audiophile tweaker. Until you become familiar with their biases you will most likely get a decent performance but not one that you personally would find the best. None of these magazines is particularly concerned about the quality of the sound. The PBS and old Freed Basic Repertoire lists are also very biased and limited although any Basic Repertoire list is a decent place to start. If you like a particular piece try to listen to multiple recordings that way you will quickly develop YOUR own preferences as to conductors and performance styles.
Subscriptions to Gramophone and Fanfare are indispensable for serious collectors (my Gramophone collection goes back to the invention of the LP). This is overkill for most classical music listeners. Most basic repertoire pieces have been recorded almost 200 times. For most pieces, a cross section of classical music fanatics, would probably agree on somewhere around 5-10 must hear or outstanding performances and list of another 10+ or so performances that are worth the time to listen to. That would be the extent of their agreement.
As a place to start for advice on CDs, I recommend the Classical Digest site:
http://www.classicaldigest.com/. It aggregates the recommendations of multiple review sources and pretty much serves up the recommendations in the format I described above. (Their only real shortcoming is in dealing with historical recordings). For a casual classical music listener I wouldnt quarrel with choosing any of the Top 20choices on Classical Digest as a personal favorite. You can also read the Gramophone reviews online at their site but only experience hearing a few hundred recordings can clarify your own preferences.
Vinyl is more problematic; I have been buying classical LPs since 1963 onward. I have thousands. The quality of pressing has always been a topic for heated discussion among collectors going back to the invention of the 78. There have been many superb performances that are almost impossible to find on good vinyl. Most have been remastered on CD. Let me be clear that while a superb analog recording, expertly and carefully mixed, cut and pressed will always sound better than if it were remastered to Redbook CD, however, for many classical LP issues expertise and care were lacking and the CD is a better overall choice. Some of the Vinyl reissues have an overall sound that is NOT what the originals sound like.
Audiogon has quite a few members who are very knowledgeable about classical music recordings. Classical music threads of the please recommend a good recording of get good responses and good recommendations. The Audiogon threads can also give you opinions on sound quality and opinions on the relative sound quality of Vinyl pressings and their various CD reissues.
The great thing about classical music is that there now are sufficient recordings worth listening to that you cant exhaust them in a lifetime of listening. The bad thing is that you will never hear them all.