Rating: 
Summary: Reliable, Informative - Indispensible.
Review: Absolutely the best, most helpful guide to recorded classical music there is. Indispensible when trying to buy unfamiliar music. I've used prior editions of this guide over and over to choose cd's of music I don't know well. Every time the guide has given a cd 3 stars, it has been terrific. One caveat: the reviewers do like performances on period-instruments, and they like old (sometimes mono!) recordings, and they like complete operas. So they will often give a cd a very high rating when the average listener would not necessarily enjoy it that much. But they always provide that information in the text, so you can watch out for it. I find these reviews consistently more reliable than reviews in other guides, eg Gramophone, etc. Also a pleasant book to just read.
Rating:
Summary: A must for the serious collector
Review: Clearly the best reference guide. Its main competition the Gramophone Yearbook includes too few reviews of major works. It makes it very difficult to use as a shopping guide, since most masterpieces have at least four or five equally good recordings, and many stores don't always have the exact recomendation in the book. The NPR guide is too idiosyncratic and somewhat unreliable, as well as too biased towards american composers and recordings. The Rough Guide is very good but far too devoted to modern music to be completely useful. It also has a few idiosyncratic choices and it is in need of an update. The Penguim guide and its companions (Bargain Guide and Yearbook) include detailed reviews of almost any (good) available record. You may not always agree with them (and I certainly don't) but it is always useful information. It is certaily too heavy in the british repertoire, but since it is originated in the UK that is expected. It also gives too much deference to british artists. Nevertheless once one is aware of that it is rather easy to discount all those factors and still obtain an enormpous wealth of information unavailable anywhere else we can just ignore some of those pages.
Rating:
Summary: Very Useful
Review: I find this to be a very comprehensive and useful guide. You will really find everything, from Symphonies to Piano Concertos, Oratorios to Operas...well as I said Everything.This Edition includes also "some" DVD reviews, but here a lot is missing. Only a bunch are available and not the best... To sum it up, I think that everyone needs an advice, or a guide, especially for the amateur so as not to be stuck with some ugly versions and there are lots... This Guide is Very Useful. I Recommend it.
Rating:
Summary: HERE'S HOW TO FIND THESE RECOMMENDED CDs:
Review: I've heard quite often that American readers have great difficulty finding the recordings that are recommended in the Gramophone and Penguin CD guides--primarily because these guides work from the catalog of CDs that are in print in the UK, but also because they recommend many CDs that must be imported into both the UK and US from Germany. Here's one trick to finding many, many imported CDs in the Amazon database--the only way I know of, in fact. Specially imported classical CDs retain their original label: Philips, Decca, Deutsche (from Deutsche Grammophon), Classics for... (from Classics for Pleasure), Archiv, Eloquence, Teldec, Virgin, etc. By contrast, CDs released domestically on these labels show up as Polygram, Universal, Elektra, etc. (these labels' "parent" companies). So--if you go to the classical search page and type "Deutsche" in the label field and nothing else, you get about 400 or 500 results that are specially imported Deutsche Grammophon CDs. Likewise, if you search only for "Philips" or "Decca," you will be astounded by the results--hundreds of imported CDs on these labels that I don't think can be found any other way because most imports don't carry catalog numbers. For example, dozens of DG Galleria discs can be found only by searching with "Archiv" in the label box. The peculiarity is that often these imported discs apparently have links and info for the performers, but if you search for this performer from the classical search page, these imported CDs still don't show up! Very strange... For example, searching for "Dumay" on the classical search page brings about 15-20 results, but clicking the "Dumay" link on an imported CD page brings about twice as many results! So--the other trick to searching is to click on links for a performer, and don't rely only on searching for a performer. You almost always get significantly more results by clicking a link than by searching. You can, of course, also find many--but not all!--of these CDs on the Amazon.co.uk site, which is just as easy as using Amazon.com, but often the price advantage is in Amazon.com's favor, so it can really pay off to sift through the extensive import search results. And in the case of imports from Germany, the Amazon database often still carries imports that are no longer available through the UK outlet. Examples of CDs I've found by doing label searches are Andras Schiff's box sets of Schubert piano sonatas and Mozart piano concertos, the Bruggen box set of Haydn's Sturm/Paris/London symphonies, all of the Dumay/Pires chamber music recordings on DG, Brendel's 4-disc set of the Haydn piano sonatas, recently released Double Deccas of Bizet, Hindemith, Stravinsky, and Vivaldi, Dvorak piano quintets by Richter and the Borodin Quartet, the Bohm set of the Mozart symphonies, the Alban Berg set of the late Mozart string quartets--all these recordings are very highly rated by either the Gramophone or Penguin guides, and I found all of them by sifting through the hard-to-find imports. Finally, what I've sometimes done, and what other classical music-lovers can do is, after I've found one of these highly rated recordings, I use Amazon.com's recommendation feature to create links to this hard-to-find disc from other recordings of the piece. For example, from Kemff's Schubert box set I created a link to the imported Schiff Schubert box. It was through one of these links that I found the Chung / Zimerman Gramophone Award-winning recording of the Strauss / Respighi violin sonatas on DG Galleria-thanks to whoever did that! Happy searching--and listening!!
Rating: 
Summary: Still the best
Review: My sentiments very much tend to echo those of the previous reviewer. This book remains indispensable for any serious collector of classical music. I have made numerous purchases based on the recommendations in this book and have been rarely disappointed (in particular with the sterile Naxos recording of Bruckner's motets - rather buy the Jochum on DG). My reservations are twofold: 1) Too little report on action at the independent classical labels, eg: Martin Jones' excellent second cycle of Spanish Piano Music for Nimbus remains unreviewed. Various excellent Russian recordings devoted to Grechaninov's choral works exist (Chandos, Olympia) but the only one reviewed is (needless to say) a British one. 2) Glaring ommissions. Composerwise I'll stick with Pavel Chesnokov - probably the most important Russian composer composing almost exclusively choral works. Excellent recordings were released by Olympia, but no mention. As regards compositions, I was disappointed by the paucity of reviews of Sarasate works for violin and piano (other than the Zigeunerweisen and the Carmen fantasy, which are almost mainstream) - Rachel Barton and Itzhak Perlman come to mind. Still, an excellent guide.
Rating: 
Summary: incomplete and hard to read
Review: Over the past year I have become a classical music fan. By classical I include the late 20th century, but I seem to be one of an exotic minority on that account. I was looking forward to this updated guide, but having perused it, I am quite disappointed. Like the NPR Guide (see my review), the Penguin guide contains little or nothing on the most important composers since WW2. It is nowhere near as useful as the major websites, which is a shame. In terms of format, I found it nearly impossible to read. The entries identifying the recordings look like hieroglyphics, the descriptions of many recordings are too brief to be of much use, and even for "accepted masters" I did not find several readily available recordings, which makes me wonder what else is missing. This monster clearly needs to be broken down into more manageable pieces, with each piece expanded and made more useful and user-friendly. How about 3 volumes: 1) Pre-Classical, 2) Classical & Romantic, and 3) 20th Century?
Rating:
Summary: Creme de la creme
Review: Similar to the potential pitfalls in picking out just the right bottle of wine, finding the "best" recording and performance of a certain opera, symphony, violin concerto, etc., can be a proverbial mine field. However, the expertise rendered in this jewel of a guide makes the shopping experience a happy walk in the park. Don't shop with out it! Trite analogies aside, to address the previous reviewer's frustration (oh, how I sympathize!) in finding a well stocked local classical CD shop-- ...
Rating:
Summary: The gold standard...
Review: The Penguin guide has its drawbacks. As an American, I am somwhat put off by what I perceive as a bias towards European performers. Still, all guides are biased in some fashion. The some complaint, for example, could be made about the Gramophone guide. Still, for the breadth of coverage, no one comes close to Penguin.
Rating:
Summary: Accurate, Reliable and Readable
Review: The Penguin Guide is the most comprehensive guide to classical CDs that there is. The three editors are all distinguished critics, though they are all getting on in years and one wonders how long they will continue with the onerous task of putting this book together. The Gramophone Guide does not cover as much ground but the reviews are more detailed. The opinions are always reliable and, although they do not give a single recommendation any longer, if you want a fine recording of a particular work, you will not go far wrong if you consult this book. One awkwardness - the main volume is published every two years, with a year book for updates and collections in the fallow years. So one-composer discs are updated each year, but the collections will be two years out of date at some point. I know I am not supposed to comment on other reviews here but Stravinsky's Symphony in C is indeed listed - on page 1319 (The Stravinsky Edition, Vol.4 - Symphonies and Complete Stravinsky Edition) and page 1322 (Chandos). In discs that contain a number of works, the one you want is often not first in horizontal list.
Rating:
Summary: If not the only game in town, still excellent
Review: These days there are a number of good guides to classical music, but this one still holds its own. The writing is clear (sometimes even amusing), and the choices are usually thoughtful. At its best, this guide succeeds in comparing two, three or even a dozen different versions of a given work, rather than merely citing the "best" one - which may be unavailable for any number of reasons. For anyone trying to make sense of the classical music marketplace - especially beginners dazed by hordes of Beethoven Fifth's - you could do much worse than investigate these editors' recommendations. Some caveats: yes, there are some composers who aren't even represented by a single recording. This is somewhat shameful, given that (just to pick one) there is more Xenakis available to listen to than this book would have you believe. And if the writers have an overall bias, it appears to be toward British composers, conductors and orchestras. This is not, in my opinion, a major minus since the country has such a rich musical culture, and the Guide's editors are all British. Just note it, accept it - and move on. Get what you can from their experience, and then explore some other publications, either printed or increasingly online. There are plenty of other sources of musical criticism and insight available, and frankly, for a balanced view of recordings, any skeptical consumer would want to investigate other opinions anyway. I've been using the Penguin for years and have rarely been steered totally wrong. Sometimes I don't quite agree with the top choices, but this shows how many great recordings we have (for some works) from which to choose - not to mention how two people can hear the same recording and come to a different conclusion. For both beginners and veteran listeners, this book can be safely recommended as an important volume in a well-rounded reference collection.
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