BBC Radio 3 - Building A Library

Radio 3’s ‘Building a Library’ is a regular feature broadcast as a part of the Saturday morning CD Review programme. Building a library is presented by a well known music critic who looks at a different number of available recordings of a work, playing clips and analysing the merits as well as any weaknesses of comparative recordings. The ‘First Choice’ recording is whittled down from a hand full of currently available versions as the recommended version to buy, though additional recordings are recommended by price level if there are strong choices available at mid and budget price. Furthermore recommendations are often made for ‘period instrument’ recordings, alongside the top modern orchestra choice . ‘Historic’ choices are also indicated so as not to exclude older recordings. Passionato has detailed listings of Building recommendations.