I take it that the "G" magazine refers to Gramophone magazine. I haven't seen a copy of it for some years but I can well-believe that things are going downhill there too. Everything seems like a race to the bottom nowadays.
I had subscriptions to both Gramophone magazine and Musical Times for around twenty years from the early 1960s when the quality and expertise of the contributors, generally speaking, could be relied upon. As well as wondering, like Mike Hardy, what sort of audience the present-day magazines are aimed at I'm even more intrigued to know who actually thinks up these largely preposterous lists and how (or if) they are qualified to write about music at all.
You have to wonder who the BBC Magazine is aimed at. Many music lovers would see the appearance of these lists and rapidly cancel their subscriptions.
As so often the BBC has dumbed down to the lowest common denominator.
I have a horrible inkling that the G magazine is going the same way ("Best Beethoven" etc.)- although the choices there are more considered. If they had called it "Beethoven recordings to which you should listen"- might have been better?
I find it a highly-irritating thought that whoever compiled this list for Classic FM was paid for doing so when any number of contributors to this message board would have been able to make a far more intelligent one gratis.
I listened to Classic FM a few times when it first hit the airwaves before deciding it wasn't for me; having seen some examples of the content of the associated magazine (courtesy of Mr Hopton et al. ) I have decided not to buy a copy of it but to save my pennies to spend on journalism of more reliability, integrity and balance such as is to be found in The Daily Star.
I think, Mr Tuxedo, that you are referring to the compiler(s) at Classic FM, rather than the original poster here, Terry Hopton.
Most readers of MWI would probably give up reading this absurd list, if they hadn't done so already, by the time they get to the fourth entry of Claudio Abbado, when we are informed that he founded the Lucerne Festival Orchestra - amazing really when you think that Abbado would have been around 5 years old when Furtwangler and Toscanini first conducted it.
It is my fervent wish that Mr Hopton will soon (very soon) find another - less irritating - hobby.
Or, is this Message Board now the official outlet for announcements about Classic FM's latest nonsense?
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