The difference is monumental. The magnificent Mr Moore offers well considered and documented opinions and makes no claims that his preferences are "the best" - just the results of his, personal, in depth studies. The "best lists" seems to be random thoughts of the musically uneducated.
Carry on Mr Moore!
In a previous thread, Mr Lague mildly challenged my suggestion that something of a consensus on the quality of classical music and recordings can be derived from the collective opinions of "experienced, knowledgeable, enthusiastic and informed" writers and here questions whether the compilers of silly "best" lists are "qualified" to do so at all. Speaking as someone who has had the temerity to post lots of "best of" recommendations in my surveys and reviews, I hasten to confess that I make no such claim beyond a love of and long acquaintance with such music and am in no sense qualified by skill, talent or academic training to pontificate, but in the end we tend to gravitate towards commentators whose opinions chime with our own. I have certainly come to distrust the opinions of many "real musicians" some of whose judgements I have come to regard as positively perverse. This is not a new phenomenon; for example, Renata Tebaldi lamented the rise of a generation of conductors who knew little or nothing about the operatic repertoire and the mechanics of the voice, and could not play several instruments like those of the old school, and whose "guidance" was thus wholly unreliable and even counterproductive; I have commented on this elsewhere. So perhaps, ultimately, helpful critique is just as likely to be contributed by the "enthusiastic amateur" as the "qualified professional"...
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