Leading critics recall their Gramophone debuts:
I was busily writing for three music magazines when early in 2003 I got a call out of the blue from Michael Quinn. Would I like to review a disc for Gramophone? A new work by Wynton Marsalis called All Rise, conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen, on Sony Classics. I had worked with Quinn when he was deputy editor of Classic FM magazine (RIP). He was now deputy editor of Gramophone. I demurred. This was repertoire out of my comfort zone – and I’d be making my Gramophone debut with it. Who would not be excited to be invited to join such an illustrious roll call of contributors, past and present? But it was still a daunting prospect: for me, this magazine has always represented the gold standard. The review took me about a fortnight to write"
