mf@cornell.UUCP (mf) (12/30/84)
The French counterpart to the "Complete Penguin Stereo Record and
Cassette Guide" is called the "Dictionnaire des Disques." It is a compilation
and revision of reviews on records published during the last 25 years in the
magazine "Diapason." I prefer it to the Penguin on many accounts, here are
some:
o It does not limit itself to stereo (Penguin does with exceptions), and its
criterion for selection is musical (rather than merely technical) excellence;
though they speak of the technical aspect, too; they list what they think are
the best recordings, and do not try to list every mediocre recording.
References to historical recordings and musicians as Edwin Fischer,
Furtwangler, Landowska, Boulanger, the Busch brothers and so on abound.
They might even list a 78rpm record (usually out-of-print...) if they think
it musically warrants being mentioned.
o The reviewers, listed at the beginning of the book, are the ones who reviewed
through this past quarter of a century for Diapason, and include some
outstanding French musicians and musicologists. The tastes vary (and do not
always agree with mine), but the reviews are uniformly good; the Penguin has
just 3 authors and I wonder how they can possibly cover in depth such a vast
repertoire. I also have reservations about the quality of the reviews.
o As a result of the selectivity in recordings for single works and the wide
team of reviewers, the Diapason book ends up speaking of more works per
composer and of more (``important'') composers, and performances too. I
mentioned elsewhere, for example, that the Penguin was poor on Haydn...
o The book covers what's mostly available in France rather than in GB or here,
so naturally there is more Faure than Elgar or Bax. But the difference in
the repertoire is much more extensive than that: Penguin covers what seems
to me the more popular classical music in the GB and US (so they list John
Williams for instance), while the Diapason is much more comprehensive on
early (maedieval and renaissance) and contemporary music; on (continental)
European music (i.e., not only French). Compare for instance the entries for
Bartok--Penguin's is much shorter.
o Technically, the French book surpasses the Penguin, too; for one thing, they
use a rather bold type (Penguin: italics) for the name of the work, then list
the recordings in another type and well separated. The reviews themselves
are in a smaller point than the Penguin's, which explains also why there is
more material per page, even. At the end of the book, there is a full artist
index. Though the books compare in length (and weight?) the French one is
cheaper (not common with French books). Its only drawback is that only the
first 3 letters of the composer name appear at the top of the page, which can
be a drag if you keep looking at Schubert, Schumann, Schuman and Schoenberg;
the Bach family (more of them than in the Penguin); Michael and Josef Haydn;
and so on. It is somewhat less recent than the latest edition of the
Penguin (1981), but that does not matter for historical recordings that much,
does it. (I don't know if there is a more recent edition).
o I also find much complacency in the Penguin--not only in the reviews but
in the (long) introduction and even in the title ("complete?" come on...)
That attitude is absent from the Diapason.
o Publishing Information:
The Complete Penguin Stereo Record and Cassette Guide
Penguin, 1984
ISBN: 0 14 046.682 7
Dictionnaire des Disques
Robert Laffont, Paris 1981
ISBN: 2-221-50233-7
Bottom line: if you like good recordings and want to extend your discography,
get this book. Even if you don't know French, you'll be able to understand
the listings, and you might be surprised or interested by what you find.
If you read French, you might enjoy their very special style of review.