What makes an Award-winner so remarkable?
Our annual Awards magazine is always among our most popular issues, and understandably so. After a year of in-depth exploration and analysis of a thousand or so recordings by our expert critics, we present the best. It’s worth pausing to ask what we mean by that word, ‘best’. I’m not remotely implying that it requires a qualification – quite the opposite. The recordings we’re here naming as Award-winners, let alone the Recording of Year, are sublime and profound works of artistic expression, whose contribution to our understanding of the music being performed is immense. No, my point is only that this isn’t a race – being the best isn’t like being the fastest. So what does winning a Gramophone Award mean? Impeccable virtuosity is a given, but what makes those…