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The Penguin Music Classics Series

Penguin Music Classics was a series of 50 compact discs published between 1998 and 1999 that combined high grade classical music performances with often touching essays from established literary figures and other persons of note as the CD liner notes. The recordings were drawn from the catalogues of PolyGram owned Decca, Deutsche Grammophon and Philips. The performances chosen for each disc were endorsed by the authoritative, and now out of print, Penguin Guide to Compact Discs (later known as The Penguin Guide to Recorded Classical Music), each with at least a 3-star rating (out of 4 stars maximum). Three stars indicate “An outstanding performance and recording of the calibre we now take for granted;” while four stars denote “A really exceptional issue on every count… in which artists are inspired to excel even their own highest standards, or have something quite revelatory to reveal about the music.”

The brainchild of then Penguin Group CEO Michael Lynton, the intent of Penguin Music Classics was to provide a fast and easy way for casual or beginner classical listeners to choose and purchase high quality performances at a low to mid-range price. In his own words Penguin Music Classics was “for a group of people like myself who are pretty well-educated, but badly educated in classical music.” By using only highly rated performances, Penguin Music Classics meant to take the guesswork out of purchasing classical music. To appeal to the casual listener and literary aficionados alike, the series included liner notes by well-known writers such as Arthur Miller, Douglas Adams, Garrison Keillor, Wendy Wasserstein, and Edmund White, among others, to provide “good, lively liner notes, not by some dry musicologist.” Lynton and PolyGram executive Danny Goldberg, hoped that using the Penguin Classics logo on classical music CDs would bring up-scale book fans, such as Penguin Classics customers, to purchase classical music as well; and thus to extend the Penguin Group’s reach into a new market while at the same time uplifting PolyGram’s sales.

The Penguin Music Classics series debuted in the U.S. on September 29, 1998. The series launched in the U.K. on January 28, 1999. The CDs were manufactured in different locations for each market with different colored spines on the CD cases. For the USA market the discs were manufactured in the U.S. with a white spine, for the U.K. market the discs were manufactured in Germany with a black spine. Writers were sometimes used for CDs in one market, and different writers for the same CD in the other market. For example, the U.S. edition of Mozart’s Requiem features an essay from scientist Stephen Jay Gould, but the U.K. edition features an essay by writer D.M. Thomas. Another example, the U.S. edition of Verdi’s La traviata Highlights features an essay by novelist Sue Miller, whereas the U.K. edition features an essay by film director Sir Richard Eyre. Just to complicate matters, at least one U.K. edition CD (#31) can alternately feature one of two writers. The last CD in the series, Schubert’s ‘Trout’ Quintet, was released in the U.S. on November 30, 1999.

The following is a complete list of the 50 Penguin Music Classics CDs with somewhat incomplete information. Since my Penguin Music Classics collection is a mix of the U.S. and U.K. editions, I don’t have a complete list of the writers featured in the Penguin Music Classics series. Any help filling in the blanks would be appreciated.

Additional Reading and Sources:

Penguin, PolyGram to Form Classical Imprint: Label to Launch ‘Penguin Music Classics’ Series by Larry Flick from Billboard Magazine April 11, 1998

Classical: Keeping Score by Bradely Bambarger from Billboard Magazine August 15, 1998

Footlights: Another Spin by Lawrence Van Geldersept from The New York Times September 30, 1998

High Culture from Billboard Magazine October 24, 1998

Books: Cover Stories by The Literator from The Independent November 21, 1998

Literary Liners by Greg Sandow from The Wall Street Journal October 14, 1999