Gramophone (magazine)

Last updated

Gramophone
Gramophone Magazine October 2013.jpg
EditorMartin Cullingford
Categories Classical music
FrequencyMonthly
PublisherMark Allen Group
First issue1923
CountryUnited Kingdom
Based in London, England
LanguageEnglish
Website www.gramophone.co.uk OOjs UI icon edit-ltr-progressive.svg
ISSN 0017-310X

Gramophone (known as The Gramophone prior to 1970) is a magazine published monthly [1] in London, devoted to classical music, particularly to reviews of recordings. It was founded in 1923 by the Scottish author Compton Mackenzie [2] who continued to edit the magazine until 1961. [3] It was acquired by Haymarket in 1999. [4] In 2013 the Mark Allen Group became the publisher. [5]

Contents

The magazine presents the Gramophone Awards each year to the classical recordings which it considers the finest in a variety of categories.

On its website Gramophone claims to be: "The world's authority on classical music since 1923." This used to appear on the front cover of every issue; recent editions have changed the wording to "The world's best classical music reviews."

Its circulation, including digital subscribers, was 24,380 in 2014. [6]

Listings and the Gramophone Hall of Fame

Apart from the annual Gramophone Classical Music Awards, each month features a dozen recordings as Gramophone Editor's Choice (now Gramophone Choice). Then, in the annual Christmas edition, there is a review of the year's recordings where each critic selects four or five recordings, and these selections make up the Gramophone Critics' Choice. In April 2012, Gramophone launched its Hall of Fame, an annual listing of the men and women (artists, producers, engineers, A&R directors and label founders) who have contributed to the classical records industry. The first 50 were revealed in the May 2012 issue and on Gramophone’s website, and each year will see another intake into the Hall of Fame. [7]

Archive

In late 2012, Gramophone announced the launch of a new archive service. [8] Subscribers to the digital edition are now able to read complete PDFs of every issue of the magazine dating back to its launch in 1923; previously only OCR text versions of archive magazine articles were provided.

Related Research Articles

<i>Autosport</i> British motorsport magazine

Autosport is a global motorsport publishing brand headquartered based in Richmond, London, England. It was established in 1950 at the same time as the origins of the Formula One World Championship.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Compton Mackenzie</span> Scottish writer (1883–1972)

Sir Edward Montague Compton Mackenzie, was a Scottish writer of fiction, biography, histories and a memoir, as well as a cultural commentator, raconteur and lifelong Scottish nationalist. He was one of the co-founders in 1928 of the National Party of Scotland along with Hugh MacDiarmid, R. B. Cunninghame Graham and John MacCormick. He was knighted in 1952.

Haymarket Media Group is a privately held media company headquartered in London. It has publications in the consumer, business and customer sectors, both print and online. It operates exhibitions allied to its own publications, and previously on behalf of organisations such as the BBC. The company expanded outside the UK in 1999.

<i>Stuff</i> (magazine) British consumer electronics magazine

Stuff is a British consumer electronics magazine published by Kelsey Media.

The National Gramophonic Society (NGS) was founded in England in 1923 by the novelist Compton Mackenzie to produce recordings of music which was ignored by commercial record companies. The Society was proposed shortly after Mackenzie had launched his monthly The Gramophone, and its activities were announced and its releases promoted in the magazine's pages.

<i>Rock Sound</i> British rock music magazine

Rock Sound is a British magazine that covers rock music. The magazine aims at being more "underground" and less commercial, while also giving coverage to better-known acts. It generally focuses on pop punk, post-hardcore, metalcore, punk, emo, hardcore, heavy metal and extreme metal genres of rock music, rarely covering indie rock music at all. The tag-line "For those who like their music loud, extreme and non-conformist" is sometimes used. Although primarily aimed at the British market, the magazine is also sold in Australia, Canada and the United States.

A digital edition is an online magazine or online newspaper delivered in electronic form which is formatted identically to the print version. Digital editions are often called digital facsimiles to underline the likeness to the print version. Digital editions have the benefit of reduced cost to the publisher and reader by avoiding the time and the expense to print and deliver paper edition. This format is considered more environmentally friendly due to the reduction of paper and energy use. These editions also often feature interactive elements such as hyperlinks both within the publication itself and to other internet resources, search option and bookmarking, and can also incorporate multimedia such as video or animation to enhance articles themselves or for advertisement purposes. Some delivery methods also include animation and sound effects that replicate turning of the page to further enhance the experience of their print counterparts. Magazine publishers have traditionally relied on two revenue sources: selling ads and selling magazines. Additionally some publishers are using other electronic publication methods such as RSS to reach out to readers and inform them when new digital editions are available.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">World Record Club</span>

The World Record Club Ltd. was the name of a company in the United Kingdom which issued long-playing records and reel-to-reel tapes, mainly of classical music and jazz, through a membership mail-order system during the 1950s and 1960s.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jan Lisiecki</span> Musical artist

Jan Lisiecki is a Canadian-born classical pianist of Polish ancestry. Lisiecki performs over a hundred concerts annually and has worked closely with the world's leading orchestras and conductors, in a career at the top of the international concert scene spanning over a decade. He has been a recording artist for Deutsche Grammophon since the age of fifteen.

<i>Radiation (BBC Recordings 84–86)</i> Live album by Cabaret Voltaire

Radiation is a collection of recordings from Cabaret Voltaire during their most accessible period. They were also made in the BBC's studios with in-house producers and engineers rather than the usual self-produced material at Western Works studios.

<i>Classical Music</i> (magazine) Classical music magazine

Classical Music is a trade magazine for the classical music industry. It co-sponsors the annual ABO/Rhinegold Awards for backstage work in music, held for the first time in January 2012 - and has a network of correspondents worldwide.

The Testament Records label, based in Great Britain, specialises in historical classical music recordings, including previously unreleased broadcast performances by Arturo Toscanini and the NBC Symphony Orchestra and the pianist Solomon. It has also issued DVDs of kinescopes of Toscanini's 10 televised concerts on NBC from 1948 to 1952, adding sound taken from magnetic tape recordings of the broadcasts.

Limelight is an Australian digital and print magazine focusing on music, arts and culture. It is based in Sydney, New South Wales. Originally published in 1976 by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), as ABC Radio 24 Hours, or simply 24 Hours, since March 2018 it has been published independently by Limelight Arts Media, owned by music lovers Robert Veel and Bruce Watson.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mahler Symphony No. 8 discography</span>

This is a discography of commercial recordings of Gustav Mahler’s Eighth Symphony.

These lists show the audio and visual recordings of the opera L'Orfeo by Claudio Monteverdi. The opera was first performed in Mantua in 1607, at the court of Duke Vincenzo Gonzaga, and is one of the earliest of all operas. The first recording of L'Orfeo was issued in 1939, a freely adapted version of Monteverdi's music edited by Giacomo Benvenuti, given by the orchestra of La Scala Milan conducted by Ferrucio Calusio. In 1949 the Berlin Radio Orchestra under Helmut Koch recorded the complete opera, on long-playing records (LPs). The advent of LP recordings was, as Harold Schonberg later wrote, an important factor in the postwar revival of interest in Renaissance and Baroque music, and from the mid-1950s recordings of L'Orfeo have been issued on many labels. Koch's landmark version was reissued in 1962, when it was compared unfavourably with others that had by then been issued. The 1969 recording by Nicholas Harnoncourt and the Vienna Concentus Musicus, using Harnoncourt's edition based on period instruments, was praised for "making Monteverdi's music sound something like the way he imagined". In 1981 Siegfried Heinrich, with the Early Music Studio of the Hesse Chamber Orchestra, recorded a version which re-created the original Striggio libretto ending, adding music from Monteverdi's 1616 ballet Tirsi e Clori for the Bacchante scenes. Among more recent recordings, that of Emmanuelle Haïm has been praised for its dramatic effect. The 21st century has seen the issue of an increasing number of recordings on DVD and Blu-ray.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dennis Hale (vocalist)</span> English singer

Dennis Hale, born Dennis Godfrey Hoare, was a vocalist with a number of bands and performers, including the Oscar Rabin Band, Jack Parnell, Johnny Douglas, Teddy Foster, and Eric Winstone.

Launched by Gramophone magazine in late 2011, the Gramophone Hall of Fame is an annual listing of the people who have contributed to the classical record industry. Fifty individuals and ensembles entered the Hall of Fame in its first year. A special edition of the magazine celebrates this new initiative, and the list was first published online on 6 April 2012.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kenneth Alwyn</span> British conductor and composer (1925–2020)

Kenneth Alwyn Wetherell was a British conductor, composer, and writer. Described by BBC Radio 3 as "one of the great British musical directors", Alwyn was known for his many recordings, including with the London Symphony Orchestra on Decca's first stereophonic recording of Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture. He was also known for his long association with BBC Radio 2's orchestral live music programme Friday Night is Music Night, appearing for thirty years as a conductor and presenter, and for his contribution to British musical theatre as a prolific musical director in the 1950s and 1960s. He was a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Music and married the actress Mary Law in 1960. His website and the first volume of his memoirs A Baton in the Ballet and Other Places were both published in 2015. The second volume Is Anyone Watching? was published in 2017.

The Theatre of Early Music is a choir and Baroque instrumental ensemble based in Montreal, and later in Toronto. It is conducted by Daniel Taylor. The group performs and records early sacred music. One of the group's better known pieces is Stabat Mater.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Classics Club (record label)</span> Defunct British record label

Classics Club was a British record label which was active between 1956 and 1964. It was a pioneer in the release of low-cost classical music LP records marketed direct to the public though a record club.

References

  1. Howard Cox; Simon Mowatt (2007). "Technological change and innovation in consumer magazine publishing" (PDF). Technology Analysis and Strategic Management. Retrieved 1 November 2016.
  2. "Compton Mackenzie". Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved 6 January 2021.
  3. "Compton Mackenzie". Pengiun Books. Retrieved 6 January 2021.
  4. Gramophone September 1999, page 2
  5. "Mark Allen Group acquires Gramophone". inpublishing.co.uk. 11 October 2013. Retrieved 14 November 2013.
  6. Audit Bureau of Circulations (UK), 31 December 2014.
  7. "Gramophone Hall of Fame". Gramophone. Retrieved 11 April 2012.
  8. "Gramophone launches new digital archive app". Gramophone. Haymarket Consumer Media. Retrieved 11 December 2012.