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What is Europe\u2019s fastest game bird? This, bizarrely enough, was the question that gave Sir Hugh Beaver, MD of the Guinness Brewery, the idea for a new reference book back in 1951. Four years later, and after various negotiations with famous fact-compiling brothers Ross and Norris McWhirter, Beaver watched proudly as the first ever edition of the Guinness Book of Records<\/a><\/strong><\/em> rolled off the presses\u2026 and straight on to the Christmas wish lists of millions of children across the globe. <\/p> Right from the outset, classical music records have featured in the annual publication, now known as Guinness World Records<\/em>. Entries have ranged from the expected, such as loudest note, most expensive violin and so on, to more unlikely facts such as the longest harmonium recital. <\/p> Controversy has occasionally been courted in its pages. There was, for example, the case of Havergal Brian\u2019s Gothic<\/em> seemingly being discounted as the world\u2019s longest symphony on the grounds of quality. Elsewhere, some \u2018records\u2019 seem to have been more of a case of subjective judgment rather than verifiable fact: how does one actually measure that, for instance, the ukulele<\/a><\/strong> is the world\u2019s easiest instrument to learn<\/a><\/strong>, or that Florence Foster Jenkins<\/a><\/strong> is the worst soprano<\/strong> ever to have lived? <\/p>