Rating: 
Summary: 2002 New and improved
Review: For me Gramophone Good CD Guide and Penquin Guide have always been the essentials for collecting classical CD's. In the past the Gramophone guide has been a little harder to use. They have advertised easier to use and for once that claim proves out. One does have to understand the obvious slant toward the Brit's own bands and composers. But one thing I have learned in my collection of over 2500 classical CD's, we tend to put up with a poorer performance here in the States than they do accross the pond. Therefore I don't see that bias as bad. The best thing about this guide is no matter if you are a novice or a season collector, this guide will help you get the best available added to your collection.
Rating:
Summary: What did you expect?
Review: I don't understand why the reviews below think the book is a ripoff. No, they don't have a lot of new material, compared to previous issues. No, (personally) I don't think they cover much more than the "core" repertoire.BUT, how many new or reissued CDs are there in a year, and how many of those are "good" CDs? Given that most of the better performances on disc -- CDs and LPs -- were recorded MANY years ago, newcomers will have to AT THE VERY LEAST match these level of performance to be eligible to be included; whereas reissues will be just that, the same ones will re-appear year after year. If it was that easy to supplant previously established standards then we would not exactly be worshipping the Walters, the Klemperers and the Furtwaengers! I'm sure Gramophone would have a much easier job of including new information if this book is called Gramophone Classical Not-so-Good CD Guide!
Rating: 
Summary: more of the same
Review: I like using using these books for reference( I have several years editions of this), however, it's quite obvious to me that there really isn't all that much change in the reviews, from year to year. I have the 1997,98,99,00,01, and 02 editions, and the lack of change from year to year is striking. What a rip! In my humble opinion, the Penguin Guides are so much better (although they also repeat much info, there are so many more recordings reviewed). One may also want to check out the Third Ear book on Classical Music recordings.
Rating:
Summary: Beethoven: 9 simphony
Review: I need Know what is the very best vertion of 9 simphony of Ludwig van Beethoven
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Summary: How nice if I could get my book .
Review: I'd rather be writing, but I haven't receved the book yet.
Rating:
Summary: An Essential Tool
Review: I've avoided buying the Good CD Guide in the past because I found it too cumbersome to use. The 2002 format is much better and I find that I rely on it much more than I expected. It has a list of 100 "Great" recordings (although there are really only 99 as "Falstaff" is listed twice) and a small "Basic Library" to begin your collection. It's a great tool if you're building a collection or just trying to find a better recording of an old favorite. It's also a nice adjunct to Gramophone magazine.
Rating:
Summary: An Essential Tool
Review: I've avoided buying the Good CD Guide in the past because I found it too cumbersome to use. The 2002 format is much better and I find that I rely on it much more than I expected. It has a list of 100 "Great" recordings (although there are really only 99 as "Falstaff" is listed twice) and a small "Basic Library" to begin your collection. It's a great tool if you're building a collection or just trying to find a better recording of an old favorite. It's also a nice adjunct to Gramophone magazine.
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: Unsatisfied
Review: In my humble opinion, there are many very good recordings being left out in this guide. Not many historical sets referenced. The most part of the guide considers new recordings (eg. since 1998 ) and there isn't enough info on past recordings.
Rating: 
Summary: is this a joke?
Review: is this a joke?...all their reviews are exactly the same as last years and the reccomendations are the same!...i spent 30 bucks on this...i was so excited to get it to continue with my budding lil collection...why do they pic 2 recordings and then write a book about each cd?...why dont they give it a rating? then write just one lil paragraph like penguin does so they can fit in many more recordings? for someone that has the 2002 edition is this worth 30 bucks to add a few cds and dvds...for the 2002 yearbook they listed falstaff 2 times in their 100 greatest recordings which was bizarre to me...i would think a major book like this would use some proof reading...they did the same thing in 2003? haha i dont get it...is it a joke? can someone please tell me?... can someone please make a book with all the available cds and ratings from 1 to 100 on each? and maybe one sentence about important facts we should know and a different rating for performance and sound
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