Gramophone has been the world’s leading authority on classical music since 1923. With 13 issues a year every edition will enrich your classical music knowledge with in-depth interviews and features about composers past and present, plus established and new artists from across the globe. Each issue includes over 100 reviews of the latest CDs, downloads, DVDs and books all written by our globally acclaimed panel of expert critics. Gramophone is the magazine for the classical collector, as well for the enthusiast starting a voyage of discovery.


The trial issue features an in-depth retrospective on Schubert’s Winterreise, with input from some of the leading performers of the song cycle, including Jonas Kauffman, Ian Bostridge, Gerald Finley and Brigitte Fassbaender.


It also includes an interview with the San Francisco Symphony’s conductor, Michael Tilson Thomas; the New York Philharmonic’s Music Director, Alan Gilbert, discusses Nielsen’s Fifth Symphony; plus we look back at the remarkable career of American soprano Leontyne Price.


Also featured in the trial issue: we analyse the breakthrough works of John Adams, we reconsider Sir Thomas Beecham’s classic recording of Puccini’s La bohème, and we recommend the very best recordings of Rachmaninov’s Symphony No 2.

Please note: This is the North American edition of Gramophone. It includes all the pages of the UK edition and also a specialised 16 page supplement each issue, “Sounds of America”. This details the most exciting musical developments across North America as well as reviewing the most interesting specialist American releases.

Latest issue

For the January 2021 issue of Gramophone, on sale from December 30, we meet the Music Director of our Orchestra of the Year, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, as he embarks upon a new recorded Rachmaninov cycle with his Philadelphian musicians who are, he says, born to play this repertoire. Elsewhere, we interview the pianist-conductor Howard Shelley who, despite just turning 70, is more determined than ever to continue in his mission to unearth rare composers. Plus, we host our annual season preview – evidence that, despite 2021 looking a little different for orchestras and opera companies around the world, there is still plenty of music-making to experience, both live and online.

In addition, in this month’s Collection, Mark Pullinger picks his top version of the most performed (and recorded) of Russian operas – Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin.

Plus, don’t miss our expert critics’ opinions of the newest classical releases: which will be named Editor’s Choice, and which overall recording will be crowned Recording of the Month?