BBC Music

I have subscribed to the BBC Music Magazine almost since its beginning a decade ago. It was introduced to me as a way of both building a good classical CD collection and learning more about music at the same time. For one low price (less than the cost of an average classical CD, in fact), one gets both a quality recording (some original pieces, some re-issues of quality library recordings from the BBC archives).

Each month, BBC Music Magazine highlights the latest issues and reissues in the classical CD world, as well as branching out in folk, world, and more popular pieces. Reviews include the top selling CDs, notable new releases, orchestral works, opera, choral, chamber, instrumental, jazz, and musicals. These fall under the heading of the essential recordings and the best critics. The BBC, because of its long history of association with quality broadcasting on a global scale, has within its writing and critical nets the greatest from all over the world. Included among the reviews are the latest and greatest books on musical subjects, as well as a sampling and offering of web sites of interest. The section of reviews is always indexed, which is a nice and handy feature.

The section entitled 'The Guide' offers picks of the month including concerts and opera, radio and television highlights, and always a particular feature. Unfortunately for American readers, this is the listing for the UK -something to use when planning a trip, but less than useful for regular planning.

Some of my favourite issues have included personality profiles on violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter, mezzo Katarina Karnéus, and pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard. A great deal of history and influence on the contemporary music scene is contained in articles such as Daring Diaghilev, which explores the influence of his great inspiration, and speculates on those who will come after; and The Bard's Challenge, which discusses the problems and opportunities in music of working with Shakespearean works.

Prized CDs have included an exclusive BBC Symphony Orchestra performance of the Mahler's Symphony No. 1, conducted by Manfred Honeck, a passionate, idealistic performance that has an exceptional freshness and clarity, which tells a heartfelt story that includes memorial tunes and funereal overtones as well as a survivor's rejoicing at the conclusion. This symphony provides the backbone of the BBC Proms, and is the flagship orchestra of the BBC. The issue prior, which included a major article on Katarina Karnéus, the Welsh mezzo-soprano, included the CD of her performance of Berlioz Les nuits d'été with the BBC Philharmonic, conducted by Vassily Sinaisky. The month prior, the accompanying CD was a collection of piano pieces performed by Paul Lewis, pianist with an extensive career of performances since his performance in the World Piano Competition in London in 1994, performing pieces from Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Liszt, and Schubert.

In addition to the regular monthly issues, BBC Music Magazine includes regular special editions, which have included in the past 'The Golden Age of Musicals', a look at Broadway, West End, and other musicals from the time of Vaudeville to the present, with major articles of Hart, Rodgers, and Hammerstein, Lerner and Lowe, Bernstein, and more; 'The Glory of Venice', particularly concentrating on the works of Gabrieli, Monteverdi and Vivaldi; and Schubert: His Life, His Work, His World, which explores the background, biography, influences and compositions of this important composer. This range of special editions shows the breadth of BBC Music Magazine as well as the depth they are willing to go to in development of important themes or composers.

This is a very high quality publication with the addition of excellent recordings at a bargain price. This is perhaps one of the best ways in which to build a classical CD collection at home, and I am pleased to continue my subscription.

Here's the magazine that is what Gramophone pretends to be -a magazine for serious (and not so serious) collectors of classical music that want extraordinary value for their money and don't want their time wasted. While Gramophone has moved into new territory in recent years -such as spending pages delineating download technology and recordings and explaining why music in places like Fort Worth, Texas is worth 6 pages of text and color photography -BBC Music Magazine has stayed true to the core interests of most classical music buyers and collectors.

Both magazines carry features on important musical developments; both carried features this year on the 150th anniversary of Edward Elgar. It's not what they both do that differentiates them, it's what they both do that's different. If you review any two issues of these magazines side-by-side you will notice a bunch of differences, all of which -in my opinion -make BBC Music Magazine the better one to buy. Here they are:

1. First, each magazine comes with a CD every month. Gramophone thinks, for some bizarre reason, that people want to listen to a talky interview between its editor and a performer and then settle for listening to a dozen or so 20-second bleeding chunks of mostly obscure recordings selected by its editor as recordings of the month. Meanwhile, BBC Music Magazine rewards subscriber with a CD that is either a single piece recorded in concert, a group of complete works recorded in concert, or, as in the most recent month (June 2007) a historic recording -Malcolm Sargent's 1956 concert recording of Elgar's Symphony No. 1, its first release on CD. I'll leave it to you to decide which of these options makes the most sense for collectors -a CD you can add to your collection and sell, trade, give away or play...or an interview comparable to listening to an announcer interview a professional athlete and some bleeding chunks half the duration you get at the average Amazon site.

2. Both magazine covers state with pride they review "120 CDs, DVDs & books" (BBC Music Magazine) and "160 CDs, DVDs, books and downloads" (Gramophone). A closer inspection shows nearly all BBC Music Magazine reviews are of recordings by major composers of famous and not so famous repertoire. Gramophone review CDs by major composers; they also fill their pages with reviews of CDs by people you never heard of. The current issue includes reviews by composers named Billone, Arhtur Benjamin, Arnell, FX Richter, Moondog (is that a composer?), Grange, McCabe, Alnaes, Jeffreys, Marsh, Tucapsky, and SS Wesley. Some of the collections they review feature even more obscure composers.

3. Gramophone dedicates up to a dozen pages per issue to reviews of equipment and offers at least a half-dozen pages per issue to columnists that ruminate on issues of little interest to American readers. These columnists often end up saying something in support of Gramophone magazine. That's not too self-serving, eh? Meanwhile, BBC Music Magazine dedicates a couple pages to reviews of equipment and has virtually no pages dedicated to opinion outside of its editor's column.

4. While Gramophone has been through two extensivee format changes in the past five years and is still something of a mishmash, BBC Music Magazine's presentation is clean, simple, presentable, easy to read, and contains about two-thirds the advertising pages as Gramophone. I know BBC Music thinks the latter area is a problem. To me, as a reader, it is a joy.

With BBC Music Magazine available and delivering an original CD every month not available anywhere else in the world, I wonder why anyone continues to subscribe to Gramophone. Both magazines are relatively expensive (sinlge issue cost is $8.75 for BBC Music Magazine and $8.95 for Gramophone) but you can get a trial subscription for a good price if you buy here, shop around, or watch your junk mail. I got a one-year subscription for $55 that way.

No American should cash in their value-added subscription to either Fanfare or American Record Guide to pick up either British publication. However, if you are in the market to expand your base of knowledge, it is clear to me the best alternative is to subscribe to BBC Music Magazine. Not every one of their monthly CDs is a keeper but they are all of some value. I throw away that CD I get from Gramophone every month, my testimony to its value. I'm going to do the same with it altogether when my current subscription ends.

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I would agree with the other reviews that place this magazine in high regard. However, there are some concerns I thought I should mention, especially when comparing this magazine to Gramophone.

First, I will agree that the cds provided by BBC are better. Gramophone doesn't provide full works on their CD. However, from my standpoint, there is value to the interviews that Gramophone includes. It's just annoying to hear a bunch of clips of works.

However, when it comes to content, I often find myself prefering Gramophone to BBC Magazine. I take personal exception to the implication in one of the other reviews dismissing Fort Worth in the music world, as I live only miles from there. Our conductor, Miguel Harth-Bedoya, maintains an active tour schedule that includes, among others, the Chicago and Cleveland Orchestras, both among the top in the country. They also regularly premiere new works by significant living composers, including Kevin Puts, who was their composer-in-residence two years ago and is now a professor of composition at the Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore, MD. Maybe his name isn't the most familiar today, but living composers are what keep music fresh.

The fact is, music is alive today because we don't stay with what is familiar, and I enjoy learning about performers and composers that are new to me. I think BBC sticks too close to the traditional, and also has too much of a British preference for the reporting of music. The aforementioned review cites their extensive coverage of Elgar. It should be no surprise that a British magazine puts far more coverage on the most notable British composer of the last 200 years than Gramophone. Reading this magazine threatens to put blinders on the reader, focusing too much on the old and British. There are only so many articles to be written about composers and performers that are already dead. Gramophone favors the living, breathing art of music in its coverage.

That being said, I do wish Gramophone didn't put quite so much stock into their massive review sections. If BBC talked about more living composers and performers, at least those that aren't British, I would give it my vote.

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BBC Music main competitio in Gramophone Mag. BBC Music gives you a decent new CD each month, which makes this a bargain.

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My father very much enjoys and is quite knowledgeable about classical music, so I was hoping to get it right, and this magazine seems to be an excellent one. I gave him the subscription along with two unopened back issues I found on ebay. It was a hit!

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