Like Albion, I too religiously purchased every edition of the Penguin Guides as they came out - and the preceding hardback volumes of the Stereo Record Guide, from which much of the initial material originated - and I still have them stored on my shelves for occasional reference. What is interesting is not so much the reviews themselves, most of which are uncontroversial even if sometimes lacking in detail, but the manner in which the authors themselves changed their minds over the years. When reviewing a reissue of the Solti Tristan und Isolde for MusicWeb some years ago, I commented on the manner in which a release hailed in the 1962 SRG as an overwhelmingly great recording surpassing in achievement even the mono Flagstad set, was progressively downgraded with whole paragraphs of commendation removed until the issue was left in the latest editions with a decidedly diminished status well down the list of preferences. One can see similar evolution in the critical evaluation of music on 'original instruments', at first treated with considerable disdain and then gradually welcomed as musical fashions altered. As such the volumes, published over a span of more than forty years, provide an interesting conspectus on the changes in critical taste over the years, even when the actual writers remained the same.
Of course with the increasing torrent of CD releases there is no real prospect of any future printed publication being able to compete with the would-be comprehensive survey provided by the Penguin Guides, even when the edtions in later years became increasingly and more quixotically selective. Would-be competitions such as the Gramophone Good CD Guides have also fallen by the wayside. Nor, I suspect, do we any longer hanker after a grading system which divides releases into best buys, second-string issues or outright failures; critical opinion is too divided for that, although there will of course always be some recordings which sail effortlessly to the top of the pile in terms of sheer excellence. That may well be healthier, and indeed critical disagreement is always welcome even when the writers abandon any attempt at consistency in the process.
To some extent the gap is filled by the availability online on archives from magazines such as Gramophone, Fanfare, Opera (and sites such as MusicWeb) which enable readers to make comparisons between different viewpoints and writers in the same manner as the compendious annual Penguin Guides and Good CD Guides (although the absence of such archives from publications such as American Record Guide, BBC Music Magazine and the deceased Classic CD and Records and Recording are to be regretted). Even so there is cause to regret the absence of overall reviews of recordings from the viewpoint of an individual critic or panel of critics, although surveys of specific works by such writers as Ralph Moore and Lee Denham on MusicWeb do provide a valuable reminder of recordings of operas or symphonic cycles which can become overlooked as the years pass. And of course, with the passing of those years the continual expansion of the catalogues render such surveys in need of revision almost as soon as they appear (something that is of course possible with an online resource, but would defeat the most indefatigable publishing company).
So in the end I think we must accept with a degree of regret that the days of such publications as the Penguin Guides are past. I note with amusement that some old editions (especially of the hardback pre-Penguin volumes) are now selling on the second-hand market at specialist prices. Perhaps we are entering a period of 'period reviews'?
