Looking for a guide to best classical recordings

Classic Digest. NPR also publishes a pretty good book if you are starting a collection, but as Bomarc says there is rarely agreement on these things from one book to another.

I'm a bit confused - are you referring to "definitive recordings" to mean the quality of the recorded sound, or did you mean the performance with out regard to the sound, or did you mean a combo of both? If you are concerned with audio quality, as opposed to performance, some of the best recommendations will come from members of audio forums who are focused on that issue (and who might also have some expertise, or good taste (:-)). Its good to know where your advise is coming from - some books and critics basically ignore audio quality.

If you are looking for the "defining" performance I agree with others - it doesn't exist. However, I believe that your first selection is very important and should be made carefully, with the knowledge that there are other excellent, but different, performances available What occurs for many folks is that 1st recording, good, bad or indifferent, will become a benchmark for judging other performances later on. I would acquire several of the guides mentioned above and operate off the consensus. Eventually you will develope an affinity for particular artists, conductors, or orchestras/groups, and be able to wade thru all of the critics and their reviews and make your on choices. With regards to the guides, I find the guides which are published in England quite useful BUT beware of the fact that they can be just as provincial, that is, placing undue emphasis on the quality of some English conductors, and the tendency to ignore some very high quality American conductors, composers, and orchestras.

Nick, I use several sources:

Penguin Guide. The "big book" is revised regularly and they also publish a shorter update between printings of the big book.

Gramophone guide. I don't like this as much. They seem to prefer the British orchestras and performers. I'm British, so I shouldn't mind! However, it seems a bit biased.

arkivmusic.com. This is an online store for classical CDs (including many hard to find ones), but they also have interesting and insightful reviews.

I also regularly read BBC Music magazine and Gramophone magazine for new issues.

My point is that you should consult a number of print and on-line sources, as well as friends/colleagues.

The NPR guide gets mentioned, but their coverage is limited and their comments not particularly useful.

Have fun!

the latest penquin guide 2004 has just been released,it includes most all of the new releases thru early 2003.as mentioned in earlier posts,the reviews don't always tell you much about the quality of the recordings,so if this is important to you ,rely on the ones that do.
the gramophone web site is also very informative as they give you their best picks going back 20 yrs. or so.
also the recommendation of the naxos label is very good,especially of the last 5 years of their recordings.the sound quality is right up there with the major labels

Thank you all for the suggestions. I guess by "definitive recording" I mean a combination of performance and recording quality. Actually, I'm not really sure, I just know that there are some recordings and performances that are famous for good reason, and I'm interested in a guide that will clue me in to some of those.

I've got a lot of great leads. Thanks again.