Gramophone

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.

The July 2025 issue of Gramophone features Anne Akiko Meyers on our cover, as the violinist releases her new album on Platoon, containing Philip Glass’s Violin Concerto No 1, plus a premier recording of the composer’s New Chaconne, written for her; she talks to Thomas May about her unflagging desire to work with composers and learn new repertoire. Also in the issue, we explore the music of French composer Georges Bizet, who died 150 years ago this year; Flora Willson offers an overview of his work and significance, both in opera and other musical spheres, and recommends some essential listening beyond the ubiquitous Carmen. And as summer approaches, bringing opportunities for holiday reading, Edward Breen explores music in literature, surveying fiction that involves music, especially early music, at its heart. Elsewhere in the issue, Icons explores the life and work of the Hungarian violinist Jelly d’Arányi, while in Classics Reconsidered Richard Wigmore and Lindsay Kemp revisit Trevor Pinnock’s acclaimed recording of Haydn’s ‘Nelson’ Mass, released in 1987 on DG Archiv: how does it stand up to scrutiny today? The July issue’s Collection sees Christian Hoskins listen to available recordings of Bruckner’s Symphony No 6 and recommend his favourite versions. Contemporary Composers looks at the work of English composer Steve Elcock, while in Musician & the Score, Tim Parry talks to Steven Osborne about Schubert’s late Piano Sonata in A major, D959. Finally, broadcaster and barrister Rob Rinder shares his musical path and passions in My Music. Plus, as always, our expert critics review the latest releases, with the very best being named Editor’s Choices.