# BBC Music Magazine



## Kevin Pearson

I have been trying to cobble together a complete collection of BBC Music Magazine. I know that Gramophone has been considered the magazine for classical music but personally I think that BBC Music is far superior in content and quality. Unfortunately I have not been consistent over the years to keep my subscription active and so have been trying to acquire back issues.

The magazine has been released monthly since September of 1992 (20 plus years! Wow!) This week I succeeded in acquiring the first six issues of the magazine and am so happy that I got them without spending a fortune. I have seen issue #1 go for well over a $200 dollars on Ebay and I got it for quite a whole lot less (a steal actually)! My collection is now complete from Issue no. 1 Sept. 1992 to December 1966 and then I have some gaps. I'm still missing somewhere around 80 issues out of close to 250 issues published so far.

If any members have any issues they no longer want I would be interested in hearing from you as to what issues you have and what I could use. Maybe we could work out a reasonable price per issue plus postage but be aware that I won't pay what I was willing to put out for the first six issues. The first years issues are much more valuable because of the lower printed copies in circulation and are pretty rare and very hard to come by.

I hope one day to have a complete collection but it may take me years. It seems a lot of classical music lovers like to keep their magazines. 

Kevin


----------



## moody

The Gramophone was the greatest,but all the wonderful critics have gone now and the magazine is but a shadow of its former self.


----------



## Ukko

Kevin Pearson said:


> [...]
> If any members have any issues they no longer want I would be interested in hearing from you as to what issues you have and what I could use. Maybe we could work out a reasonable price per issue plus postage but be aware that I won't pay what I was willing to put out for the first six issues. The first years issues are much more valuable because of the lower printed copies in circulation and are pretty rare and very hard to come by.
> 
> I hope one day to have a complete collection but it may take me years. It seems a lot of classical music lovers like to keep their magazines.
> 
> Kevin


I kept some of the CDs, none of the magazines - which were strangely Brit oriented.


----------



## Head_case

I used to spend so much time hanging around airports that I'd have finished reading the BBC Music; Gramaphone, as well as NME, Q Magazine each week 

You must have a lot of space to build up a collection. I have too much clutter at home. Have Mulberry briefcase. Will travel


----------



## Kevin Pearson

Head_case said:


> You must have a lot of space to build up a collection. I have too much clutter at home. Have Mulberry briefcase. Will travel


Well, I have a modest size home (about 1800 sq. ft.) but when my wife and I built the home we used the largest extra room we have for a library. Most people would have made it a formal dining area but we had custom bookshelves put in and if I can acquire a complete collection it should all fit on two shelves in plastic holders or maybe slightly more. I enjoy not only collecting them but reading them. I especially like reading the older issues because it's like reading classical music history. Did you know that in 1992 Nigel Kennedy said he was done with, and I quote, "dead" composers and wasn't interested in doing standard repertoire anymore? Like that really lasted! What's hilarious is that he was doing gigs of his interpretation of Jim Hendrix's music. I guess he must have been doing so much dope he didn't know Jimi was long dead! LOL For someone so talented he comes in a little short on the intelligence department.

Kevin


----------



## Guest

I subscribed to both and have a few BBC left + the CDs quite honestly I did not know it was still going it was less dependant of advertisers so I think the reviews were more honest?


----------



## Kevin Pearson

One of the reasons I enjoy BBC Music is that it has a fairly large selection of articles and news and the reviews are usually informative and have led me to some wonderful buys. Gramophone has hardly any articles anymore and is mostly advertisements and reviews. I just do not find Gramophone to be of much substance anymore. Back in the 80s I used to enjoy subscribing to it and an American magazine called Ovation. I really liked Ovation but it never lasted and the choices for music magazines covering classical is so very limited these days. BBC Music does have a distinctive British slant but what do you expect from something that's called BBC Music? Besides which I think the British have a better grasp on classical music than Americans anyway and it doesn't bother me that there is a slight bias in its pages.

Kevin


----------



## Head_case

Kevin Pearson said:


> Well, I have a modest size home (about 1800 sq. ft.) but when my wife and I built the home we used the largest extra room we have for a library.


Lol. That's not modest. That's massive compared to tight city London standards! My book collection used to be worse than my CD collection. After moving it during a relocation, mould got the best of it. Visitors think I am bordering on illiterate with less than a few shelves of books.



> Did you know that in 1992 Nigel Kennedy said he was done with, and I quote, "dead" composers and wasn't interested in doing standard repertoire anymore? Like that really lasted! What's hilarious is that he was doing gigs of his interpretation of Jim Hendrix's music. I guess he must have been doing so much dope he didn't know Jimi was long dead! LOL For someone so talented he comes in a little short on the intelligence department.


Unforgettable. Unfortunately Nigel's brain cell and his designer carnivalesque image wearing saucepans on his head coupled with his clowny attire put me off his music for years. The only thing of his which I've kept is a violin concerto which he recorded by Karlowicz:










Kevin[/QUOTE]


----------



## Kevin Pearson

It's pretty modest by Texas standards. Most people I know own homes around 2500 to 3500 sq. ft. And property is not as expensive as around London. So, if you all had the room and housing costs were the same you would probably be living in an 1800 sq ft. house as well. Texas is big and we have lots of room. People choose to live in London and cramped living conditions and many wouldn't want to live anywhere else. It's all a trade off really.

Kevin


----------



## Head_case

Kevin Pearson said:


> It's pretty modest by Texas standards. Most people I know own homes around 2500 to 3500 sq. ft. And property is not as expensive as around London. So, if you all had the room and housing costs were the same you would probably be living in an 1800 sq ft. house as well. Texas is big and we have lots of room. People choose to live in London and cramped living conditions and many wouldn't want to live anywhere else. It's all a trade off really.


You're pretty spot on. I wouldn't wish for a large space without running water/electricity in the middle of nowhere to plug my hi-fi in. In Japan, 500sq ft flats are standard; 600sq ft if you're fortunate in the city. London is a little better, perhaps heading towards 700 sq ft for the newer modern ones, which is why the older Victorian ones, usually former homes, divided into sub-flats around 800sq ft, with greater dimensions (vertical, as well as nooks and cranny corners) - these are sought after. 1,800 sq ft in the suburbs of the city is pretty much the higher end of the family home market; and stratosphericaly priced for those with childhood trust funds in the centre of the city. Family homes can be a mixed bag - anything from the mercilessly utilitarian 'Barratts' style modern housing boom of around 1000sq ft for a 3 bed room family terrace house, to around 1,500sq ft one for a higher-middle-class bracket. Ultimately, there are no clear rules: the majority of people who own large homes in the city will have inherited them, or bought them before the housing market went apeshit. It's the younger generation who are left stranded to the mercy of the homeless problems facing a booming population with limited infrastructure.

Perhaps that's why Texas is more likely to develop than London. After all, Bobby Ewing and his oil business is big lucrative business 

I like open space, partly due to playing several instruments. The acoustics of the rooms are very important to me, so having a large lounge is a must, even if everything else is compromised. Thing is..once you live in the city...it's very hard to wish to leave for good. Leaving for a weekend or holiday now and then to the countryside is fine...but work/business tends to focus on the city. Even the BBC News Corporation is in the heart of the city rather than in San Antonio's barren landscapes lol.

It's hard not to deny that the material concept of space, and landownership is very appealing. However with the fantasy of owning a large place, is the overpowering reality of the crud that comes with such trappings., I used to do a lot of work in large stately homes and rich houses with bountiful aesthetic space. Whereas it is superficially attractive, the maintenance of such large interior spaces is a head_ache for any head_case....the bills......particularly the heating in winter....


----------



## DavidA

Head_case said:


> You're pretty spot on. I wouldn't wish for a large space without running water/electricity in the middle of nowhere to plug my hi-fi in..


You need running water for your hi-fi?


----------



## Head_case

Most always ....it's for lubricating parts to enhance the listening experience:


----------



## Vaneyes

CM mags, I buy sparingly...usually when airporting...thinking they'll fill some time. Almost always, these heavy things (quality paper, I'll give that to them) are carried around unread. Just checking--two copies each for Gramophone and BBC Music (2010 - 2012) remain, and require my undivided attention. Maybe in 2013. I like the BBC Music cover for Sept. 2010--"Chicago's New Boss"- Riccardo Muti. An absolute Godfather appearance.


----------



## Head_case

Lately I seem to live in airports. I used to find Records International in the airport shops - never anymore. I wonder why?

http://www.recordsinternational.com/

Nonetheless, their internet site offers something more useful when the hard copy isn't available.

I like the CROCKS link below in the www.clofo.com link. They have foregrounded contemporary releases like Boris Tischenkos' complete string quartets and introduced some rather lovely obscurities like Jean Cartan's string quartets:










.....and not to my taste, but when did you last hear Mexican romantic string quartets, Ginastera and Villas-Lobos not being very romantic?










and Lawrence Dillon's rather unusual string quartets;










In any case, the era of the high quality lithograph produced magazine seems to have died and become replaced by cheap digital copies


----------



## Vaneyes

Didn't know of CROCKS, thanks.


----------



## Ukko

I had forgotten about HB Direct; so my thanks too.


----------



## Head_case

No problem. I like those weirdo links - it helps me find all the strange things which I like. Admittedly when I used to subscribe to the BBC Music and Gramaphone magazines, I'd just fervishly jump to the chamber music review section. Some months were desert dry and infuriatingly sparse. I found I liked gearhead hi-fi magazines as an alternative then


----------



## Vaneyes

Head_case said:


> No problem. I like those weirdo links - it helps me find all the strange things which I like. Admittedly when I used to subscribe to the BBC Music and Gramaphone magazines, I'd just fervishly jump to the chamber music review section. Some months were desert dry and infuriatingly sparse. I found I liked gearhead hi-fi magazines as an alternative then


Fervishly and feverishly, probably. Desert dry! Keep rollin'. LOL


----------



## Head_case

Haha...the only rolling I'm doing is going to roll into bed now. 

Goodnight! :cheers:


----------

