THE PENGUIN GUIDE TO THE 1,000 FINEST CLASSICAL RECORDINGS: The Must-Have CDs and DVDs. Ed. by Ivan March, Edward Greenfield, Robert Layton, and Paul Czajkowski. London: Penguin, 2011. 409 pp. $25

The rationale of this guide is “to advise readers as to the most desirable recordings available.” The prefatory matter begins with an encouragement to use downloaded music. This is followed by an address in Blackpool for “An International Mail-order Source for Recordings in the UK.” Neither of these recommendations will resonate well among already threatened streetside record shop owners. The following foreword offers an interesting potted history of recorded music, after which comes a three-part jaunt through Western music history—a general instant survey, ballet music, and opera—making sure we encounter most of the names to be found in the rest of the book, which begins with Adolphe Adam and runs to Alexander von Zemlinsky. There are also entries for 40 well-known (mostly) singers and conductors.

This compilation is apparently intended to succeed the 2010 Penguin Guide to Recorded Classical Music. Its compilers note that “Although our coverage is wide, this survey is in no way intended to be a balanced one,” and in this latter, they realize their goal completely. Percy Grainger gets more space than George Gershwin and Béla Bartók combined. There are 85 British composers listed, 56 Germans and Austrians, 53 from France and French-speaking Belgium, 30 Italians, 22 American composers (with Bernstein getting more space than Copland), 17 Russians, and a smattering of others one cannot really omit. Most of the recurring standard opera repertory is here, as well as The Beggar’s Opera of John Gay, who wrote no music, and the Savoy operas (under Sullivan, of course). The major ballet scores turn up, too. In short, from a British perspective, there are few surprises.

As to the recordings chosen, they sit well into British preferences, too: Wolf’s songs, for instance, are preferred in the older recordings of Schwarzkopf and Fischer-Dieskau, and the only Schubert cycle listed is Fischer-Dieskau’s 1970–71 Schöne Müllerin . None of Schumann’s songs are suggested. Without being able to count, it strikes me that a large proportion of the recordings preferred are rather old, but recently recycled. Far and away the favorite conductor is Thomas Beecham, who has even more recordings suggested than those of the otherwise much-appreciated Herbert von Karajan.

Notwithstanding its British bias, about which North American collectors will have varying opinions, it strikes me that the real issue with such a volume is the question of to whom it is addressed. Clearly, collectors will already have many of these recordings, especially in those areas of interest to themselves. (I suspect, however, they will peek into a copy of this tome now and then to assure themselves that they have, in fact, chosen wisely.)

This book is not about the listening experience itself, which can only be decided by one’s own ears. It does explicitly claim to present only “the most-desirable recordings available” and, in so doing, implies the cachet of being able to demonstrate one’s discrimination, of seeking out only “the finest,” as promised in the title. Readers of this journal will almost certainly not need this guide. For those, however, who want to recommend to someone a place to start, these choices are as good as any, though one can imagine many others.

Of the making of lists, there is no end. It used to be 10. After a while it became 50 or 100. Inflation takes its toll in our entire society, however, and now it seems there can be no fewer than 1,000 of the finest this, that, and t’other. Guinness offers a book of the Guiness Classical 1,000 and Brilliant Classics now has a 75-CD box of the “Classical Top 1,000.” Any day now we can expect 1,000 Great Washing Machines . I can hardly wait. Alan Swanson