How to find Happy Music and Musician to Enjoy

Review by W. Hill for Classical Music: Third Ear: The Essential Listening Companion
Rating:
This is a wonderful guide to the sometimes confusing world of classical CDs. It may not supplant the Penguin Guide as the gold-standard, but it is a very illuminating supplement to it, and may be a first choice if you live in the USA. Penguin tends to have a British bias in many of their reviews, while this book comes from a more American perspective — if you have ever bought a CD because Penguin gave it three stars, and then listened to it and wondered what all the fuss was about, this book may be for you. The reviews are entertaining to read, brief yet informative and often witty, and clearly organized to help you find what you want. The book does not cover quite the range of recordings that Penguin does, but it comes close, and certainly covers far, far more than either the Grammophone Good CD or Rough Guide books do. This is definitely the book to get if you want a second opinion after the Penguin Guide, and would make a highly satisfactory guide on its own. Very highly recommended!!!!!

Review by Alan Lekan for Classical Music: Third Ear: The Essential Listening Companion
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This is a fascinating buying guide to classical music recordings with many positive attributes. It is full of interesting historical context of the composers and their works and fascinating performer trivia, making it quite entertaining and educational in addition to comparing the many recording choices. Compared to Penguin or Gramophone, it gives MUCH MORE in-depth backgroung on each work’s history and significance. Also, there is a lack of any “British bias” (since published in USA) that some cite with Gramophone or Penguin (both UK published). Case in point: American pianist, Garrick Ohlsson’s superb eight volumes of Chopin on the Arabesque label. Third Ear is the only guide to extensively review each of Ohlsson’s Arabesque CD’s while there is not one mention in the 2003 Penguin or Gramophone. Bias? Perhaps more likely the Brits are just not familiar with all the musicians “across the pond.” Its really impossible for any one guide to be the “end-all” guide.

A notable and unique feature of The Third Ear Guide is the many pages of great biographies of the FAMOUS MUSICIANS by instrument in the back (pianists, violinists, violists, cellists, wind players, percussionists, vocalists etc). So, here you can find legends from Rubinstein, Horowitz, Pires, Perahia, Grumiaux, Oistrakh, Casels, Starker, Bain, Holliger, Graham, Pavoratti and many other admired musicians/vocalists thoughout the past century. In addition to some curious history and career milestones of these well-loved performers, The Third Ear Guide also cites some of their better recordings – a real valuable feature I found.

However, this guide waxes hot and cold depending on the composer/genre. For example, in the listings of available performances for a huge category like Beethoven’s 32 piano sonatas, there are SEVERAL entire pages covering nearly two dozen musicians who have recorded those works with compelling insights into their styles, historic performances and careers. Really great stuff for the conoisseur! But, in other categories it is a different story. Most frustrating to some is that in many cases, obvious top recordings and major performers are not mentioned, leaving the reader with an incomplete information. But, the bottom line is that no one guide is the end-all resource, and serious collectors will have this guide along with the Gramophone and Penguin Guides as each really has something valuable and often unique to contribute to the study of the finest recordings.

On the style side, the commentary is not dry and academic but full of human interest and spicy opinions – revealing “nuggets” of fascinating information for the music you most love. Additionally, the editors are not always prim-and-proper, saying only positive things (like Penguin Guide) but actually give critical and insightful comments which truly helps one sort out the pack. In this respect, the Third Ear Guide is the probably the most interesting to read compared to the others. So, this guide is much more than just a guide to look up ratings – it is a fascinating journey into classical music, its vast repertoire and its performers. If you are a serious collector, multiple guides area always the best way to go to get a wide variety of opinion. If you really can only pick one guide, most people would go with legendary Penguin Guide. But, my second guide would definately be Third Ear (over Gramophone) as it often lists recordings suprisingly not listed in Penguin. Also, it is just plain fun and fascinating to read at random.

Review by C. Zhang for Classical Music: Third Ear: The Essential Listening Companion
Rating:
I am not a professional music critic or player, but just like and listen to classical music a lot. This book is to me the a better guide than Penguin or Grammophone.

One critical feature of the book is that it has many contributors, among them are professionals like Harold Schoenberg, and many semi-professional listeners. They do not have the bias commonly felt in the Penguin guide or grammophone, nor do they say good things to every recording (as Penguin). They offer somehow personal, but reasonable and enlightening opinions, often enriched by comparisons of different recordings. I get the feeling that they are just serious listeners and tell us their feelings about different recordings. In this sense it is truly a “listern’s companion”.

Another feature is that at the end of the third part of the book is devoted to instruments and artists, which surveys the greatest instrumentalists in the 20th century. Along with a short introduction to the artist’s style are the representative recordings. This part is really helpful for beginners.

Finally, no recording guide can survey all recordings and this is no exception. A lot of recordings elsewhere claimed to be legendary could be missed here, most probably due to the personal taste of the reviewer. Also you may find the recommended recordings not to your taste and/or your favorite ones listed as not-so-good ones. But none of these is so important. Above all, no review can tell you more than listening to the recording yourself, this guide does tell you what recordings you may want to give a try. And to this point it does do a better job than Grammophone or Penguin.

Review by Jeffrey Lee for Classical Music: Third Ear: The Essential Listening Companion
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I return to this book three times as often as The Penguin Guide because it usually makes for more interesting reading and seems to offer more substance in the reviewers’ comments regarding individual performances. In addition, I don’t really detect the sort of favortism shown toward some homegrown conductors that fairly commonly characterizes the British Penguin Guide. However, I do have a few complaints about the Morin edited work here under consideration. Unconscionably, Bruckner is given a mere one and a half pages. Almost equally absurd are the thirty pages given to the vocal music of Handel. And, I’m not at all pleased with the rather paltry treatment given to the major works of Brahms. On the positive side, however, composers like Tchaikovsky, Beethoven and Mahler are given deservedly ample and fine coverage, with terribly fascinating and probing analyses concerning comparative evaluations. I say go for it ! It’s well worth its price.

Review by for Classical Music: Third Ear: The Essential Listening Companion
Rating:
At last, a comprehensive classical CD reference work that outdoes the Penguin, long my mainstay to guide one through the thickets of building a CD collection.
Physically–larger pages, white paper, easier to read, smaller type; table of contents and index, lacking in Penguin; Authors: a slate of 54 writers, mostly American, some music journalists (the Penguin staff is largely British professional musicians and reviewers) and many enthiasts, and top names like Harold C. Schonberg; Structure: short introductory essays on the composers and major pieces; more performances included and rated, including deleted ones; reviews flow in a standard paragraph format, rather than having discography information at the head of each collection of performances; easier to find a single work in the haystack. There is no discernable American or British bias, but it does omit, for example, both Daniel and Sidney Jones. Best would be to buy BOTH as happy complements to each other. Definitely better than the Gramphone annual.