Classical Music: Third Ear: The Essential Listening Companion

Rating:
Summary: Leave the Penguin in the Antarctic
Review: In its 1,201 pages, this book expresses maybe 25,000 opinions. And its unavoidable omissions silently state uncountable thousands more. So even a near-dilettante like myself will have no trouble carping over some of them. But when it takes a position significantly outside the consensus, it usually says so up front. And you won't have to waste any mental energy deciding how much of an adjustment to make for Penguin's notorious "Britannia rules the audio-waves" bias. But most decisively for me, it's simply a great deal more enjoyable to peruse. Part of that is the cleaner layout, but mostly it's the writing - concise, informative, and frank.

P.S. It's too gross a provocation to bear: To blandly say, as it does on page 36, that Glenn Gould's 1981 recording of the Goldberg Variations is "widely regarded as the definitive piano version" is nonsense on stilts. It's widely regarded as inferior in vigor and charm to his legendary and much-beloved version from the Fifties which - despite the revolution it sparked in Bach performance and the strange new celebrity it created - isn't even mentioned! OK: moldy-fig rant concluded.

Rating:
Summary: Bo in Bellevue
Review: The "Third Ear" is an extraordinary work and a very useful contribution to the arcane world of "expert" opinions on classical CDs. It is a compendium of reviews by numerous contributors on the important recorded works of all major composers and a large number of the minor ones. Opinions are clearly stated. It should be used with the Penguin Guide to Compact Discs and possibly the more limited Gramophone Good CD Guide. Because of the great number of contributors it doesn't pretend to treat each work or each composer equally. There are masses of information on performers and conductors. The bottom line for me is that this book has helped me to decide on scores of classical CDs and I have yet to be disappointed with even one purchase. This work is great value at the price of about 1-1/2 CDs.

Rating:
Summary: Good and bad
Review: The good thing about this guide is that it list several performers and recordings for a given piece; not just the good but the bad also, giving more selection for comparison than most guides.

Two bad things, though; there are many omissions, and not just minor works but recordings which other sources consider some of the best examples are totally ignored here.

The other thing is the tone of the reviewers; the attitude towards the lesser recordings is downright arrogant and condescending in many cases and the language rude and belittling. I enjoy reading a good, witty rejoinder against poor performances, but I found myself sympathizing for the artists against the snobby reviewers.

Rating:
Summary: Insightful but limited by one person reviews
Review: Third Ear competes indirectly with Penguin Guide in the field music criticism but is limited by having only one person review an entire composer or a selection of a composer's genre. So, unlike Penguin Guide, the reader only gets the opinion of a single person (along with now-deceased editor Alexander Morin) instead of the combined opinion of the three authors of Penguin Guide. Otherwise the book fares well against its more established competitor. Among Third Ear's greatest value -- it contains music often not found in Penguin Guide. It usually contains multiple listings of music deemed unsuitable for the British publication, such as Beethoven's "Wellington's Victory". Another example is its review of the burgeoning recordings of Crusell's three Clarinet Concertos, where Third Ear offers a far more comprehensive view than even the 2003-04 edition of Penguin Guide. But there are serious drawbacks in this publication, too. For reasons that could never be explained, Third Ear dedicates less than two pages to the entire output of Anton Bruckner, whose nine symphonies have been recorded many times since middle 20th century. This is a criminal oversight that cannot be forgiven, especially since Third Ear dedicates almost a page to every one of Gustav Mahler's symphonies, the composer most akin to Bruckner. I should grade this book down an entire star for this hideous omission, but I won't since I've found it countless times to be an exciting and interesting volume. Most of the authors are known to veteran collectors and many are current or former contributors to American Record Guide, including the late, esteemed editor and Harold C. Schonberg, who wrote the foreward. Both the late Messrs. Morin and Schonberg were estimable critics who never sought to turn a sow's ear into a silk purse when discussing a record, CD or live performance. While the one reviewer to a section mandate of this book can be limiting -- not to mention the way it projects the the biases of a reviewer (see the comments on Roger Norrington's Beethoven symphonies; a critic calls one "spew")-- it is not enough to deny the greatness and value of this book to record collectors. Third Ear joins the Penguin Guide, Rough Guide to Classical Music and now-deleted Insider's Guide to Classical Recordings by Jim Svejda to offer buyers information on the many choices available on Amazon.com and elsewhere in the wonderful world of classical music.

Rating:
Summary: A fine effort
Review: This book comes in direct comparison with the famous Penguin guide. In my view, it is better than the Penguin guide in its coverage of recordings made on smaller labels, and its style of prose is more readable than the "cut and paste-style" of the Penguin guide. On the other hand, the Penguin is more evenly balanced beetween composers (another reviewer mentions the poor coverage of Bruckner. A few errors here and there too, e.g. mixing up the Czech and Slovak republics a couple of times. Alltogether this book represents a fresh and very comprehensive view, with many surprising and innnovative recommendations.

Rating:
Summary: Addendum to previous review : use with caution
Review: This book needs to be used with caution. There is no mention of Gunter Wand's recordings of Beethoven Symphonies and Mackerras's life enhancing cycle of Mozart symphonies is simply dismissed because of his fast tempi as though fast tempi is synonymous with lack of expressiveness.To me Bohm's and Mackerras' views of Mozart are equally valid. If there were only one mode of interpretation, one could program a computer to play the score. To me a great work is capable of different interpretations. Morover, though the publication date is 2002, many new recordings are simply missing like Perahia's marvellous recordings of Bach's keyboard concertos.I am not replacing my Penguin or Gramophone as yet.

Rating:
Summary: Addendum to previous review : use with caution
Review: This book needs to be used with caution. There is no mention of Gunter Wand's recordings of Beethoven Symphonies and Mackerras's life enhancing cycle of Mozart symphonies is simply dismissed because of his fast tempi as though fast tempi is synonymous with lack of expressiveness.To me Bohm's and Mackerras' views of Mozart are equally valid. If there were only one mode of interpretation, one could program a computer to play the score. To me a great work is capable of different interpretations. Morover, though the publication date is 2002, many new recordings are simply missing like Perahia's marvellous recordings of Bach's keyboard concertos.I am not replacing my Penguin or Gramophone as yet.

Rating:
Summary: What a great book!
Review: 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!!!!!

Rating:
Summary: How useful a reference?
Review: This reference can be useful to the general reader but would not serve the fan or musician looking for re-released recordings of legendary artists who are not listed in the index or in the
biographies of instrumentalists. Thus, one has to wonder
what else has been omitted either out of carelessness
or choice.