BBC Offers Beethoven Symphonies for Download

Simon80 writes "BBC Radio 3 is making performances by the BBC Philharmonic of Beethoven's 6th to 9th symphonies available for free download for the next few days only, as the second part of a trial to 'test listeners appetite for downloads'. During the first part, the first 5 symphonies were offered, and over 650,000 people downloaded them."

Comments

Hmmm

[Anonymous Coward]

I've always thought that Beethoven's 9th symphony (and Beethoven generally) was incredibly overrated, just because everyone has heard of Ode to Joy. I'm no aficianado, but it seems generally all over the place and 'ding-dongy' - mindless triumphalism for the flag-waving plebs.

That said, this is awesome, BBC! Luckily I downloaded these yesterday...

Re:Hmmm

[k98sven]

I've always thought that Beethoven's 9th symphony (and Beethoven generally) was incredibly overrated, just because everyone has heard of Ode to Joy. I'm no aficianado, but it seems generally all over the place and 'ding-dongy' - mindless triumphalism for the flag-waving plebs.

Listen to the whole thing. The Ninth is a heck of a lot more than just the Ode to Joy.

I agree that if you only listen to the Ode to Joy, and take it out of the context of the greater work, then it is mindless triumphalism.

For this reason I really, really hate those "best of the classics"-type mix albums with the most-well-known fragments of classical music.

They're the musical equivalent to sports videos with "Greatest goals" etc. Watching an amazing goal is fun. But it is nowhere near the same experience as watching a full game at the edge of your seat, and experienceing an amazing last-minute goal in its context.

Re:Hmmm

[Alien Being]

Bah! Everyone loves a Pops concert!

Re:Hmmm

[Mrs. Grundy]

Well it may be triumphal, but it isn't mindless triumphalism in that sort of jingoistic way you imply. Rather is is a deep expression of joy and solidarity among your fellow human beings. With out a little work you will probably miss the point of any music which falls outside the musical vernacular within which you were raised. I would suggest spending a little time with the middle piano sonatas and concertos and move on from there. Beethoven did write some mind-blowingly profound music such as the late string quartets, but you need to be able to listen from a different point of view than you generally get by default in this culture.

Here is the text of the Schiller poem used in the last movement--I think flag waving is a stretch:

Joy!
Joy, beautiful spark of God,
Daughter of Elysium,
We enter, fire-drunk,
Heavenly, your shrine.
Your magic reunites
That which custom has strongly split;
All humans will become brothers
[Schiller's original:
What custom's sword has parted;
Beggars become princes' brothers]
Where your soft wing whiles.
Whoever has succeeded in the great attempt
To be a friend of a friend;
Whoever has achieved a lovely wife
Mix in your joy!
Yes, also whoever only one soul
Calls his own around the world!
And whoever has never known of this,
Steal away crying out of this group!
All beings drink joy
At the breasts of nature;
All the good, all the bad
Follow her trail of roses.
She gave us kisses and vines,
A friend, proven in death;
Great pleasure was given to the worm,
And the cherub stands before God.
Glad, like his sun flies
Through heaven's splendid plan,
Run, brothers, your race,
Joyful, like a hero to the victory.
Be embraced, millions!
This kiss to all the world!
Brothers, over the starry firmament
Must live a loving father.
Do you bow down, millions?
Do you sense the Creator, world?
Seek him beyond the starry firmament!
He must dwell beyond the stars.

Re:Hmmm

[lisany]

Listen to the whole thing. The Ninth is a heck of a lot more than just the Ode to Joy.

I reckon the 9th Symphony 67 minutes. Ode to Joy is but a tiny fraction of it.

Incidentally all of Beethoven's symphonies are very long. The symphonies range from around 25 minutes and the 9th is 67 minutes. It should be a crime to listen to only part of it.

Re:Hmmm

[lisany]

Since this guy forgot to quote his source here it is. It's from Wikipedia (of course). Also, Ode to Joymakes an appearance in the last half of the 4th Movement without lyrics and again with lyrics in the 5th Movement.

Re:Hmmm

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

Many classical forms have become pompous, whiny and annoying to modern ears. I, for example, can't stand any Vivaldi, Haendel, Beethoven. I've enjoyed them all, mind you, when I was younger, but I've grown out of it. These days, I enjoy Mahler, Rachmaninoff, or Franck much more, and I'm getting to be really fond of Ligeti, Xenakis and all the really modern composers.

I believe music is like wine: when you start drinking some, you prefer the sweet, easy-going ones. Then as your tastebuds develop, you start getting more and more into wines that you once thought were bitter and undrinkable, and you start "understanding" them more. What I mean is, music, like wine, is an acquired taste.

Re:Hmmm

[commodoresloat]

if you only listen to the Ode to Joy, and take it out of the context of the greater work, then it is mindless triumphalism.

Yeah -- that's the best part!

That's the way I like to watch the news too -- just fast forward to the explosions. Everything else is just an appetizer.

Re:Hmmm

[Fred_A]

You're not making fun of our anthem now are you ?

Re:Hmmm

[ettlz]

How right you are! I used to listen to Classic FM, until it became the Beethoven and Mozart channel --- pop classical stuff. Then I turned to Radio 3, and discovered things like Stravinsky, Shostakovich, Philip Glass, Steve Reich, Ligeti (you mentioned), John Adams, and... Olivier Messaien.

Re:Hmmm

[Anonymous Coward]

I like to keep all my tastes as long as possible. Pompous, experimental.

Anyway, you might like Messiaen, Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji and Frederic Rzewski.

Re:Hmmm

[RWerp]

It's not like you were the only one to grow up. Beethoven did it, too. Did you ever listen to Beethoven's late string quartets? They're legendary and noone in their right mind could call them "pompous", "whiny" or "annoying".

Besides, Mahler is also a bit pompous (but I like his music).

Re:Hmmm

[Anonymous Coward]

I used to listen to a lot of music when I was younger but now, if music disappeared from the face of the earth, I couldn't care less.

Re:Hmmm

[Anonymous Coward]

You're the type of classical music lover that always makes me laugh. In order to show how sophisticated and superior they are, they snub the big names and tell us how they really developed into liking the retatively unknown (except to the special niche of sophisticated people, of course) X, Y and Z.
Well good for you!
I for one think that's about the same as saying, hey, I'm such a sophisticated basketball fan, I've grown out of thinking Michael Jordan was the best ever, it's rather this relatively unknown player I've grown to like.
Nonsense. Beethoven was the best ever. Point.

Re: Hmmm

[Black Parrot]

> I reckon the 9th Symphony 67 minutes.

It depends on the pace set by the conductor. I have copies ranging from 59'43 to 69'34.

> Incidentally all of Beethoven's symphonies are very long.

And longer than expected at the time. Famously, during the premiere performance of the 3rd, someone in the audience shouted that he'd "give a kreutzer" for it to be done and over with.

Re:Hmmm

[a whoabot]

I would say that, chances are, at least, a man who can sincerely enjoy Xenakis for what it is is a man who understands art in general. No guarantees though. Try listening to Koji Asano or Webern, Lawrence Hayward(Felt/Denim), Daniel Johnston or Jad Fair(Half Japanese).

Re:Hmmm

[anwyn]

I have always enjoyed the ninth. But I've always felt that the "choral Fantasy" OP.80 Fantasia in C for Piano, Chorus and Orchestra was much better. The music is better (if shorter) and the sentiment expressed by the lyrics is purer.

Re:Hmmm

[madaxe42]

Try Shostakovich , and perhaps Rimsky-Korsakov - I love Rach - nothing better than hammering out a few of his preludes... c# minor is an amazing piece of music - as is elegie... His orchestral works are also pretty stunning, and the piano interludes are great to play if you don't have an orchestra to hand.

Re:Hmmm

[Christopheles]

Just like cottage cheese and tuna!

Re:Hmmm

[william_w_bush]

Indeed, the 4th movement, and the 3rd are still among my all-time fave tracks, but try to get a good performance, I have a 120MB rip of the 4th movement by Bernstein, which is incredible. Cheap dime cuts are pathetic compared to a good performance (this one is the weiner phil), and just not worth it.

Been a while since I've been in a chill enough mood to sit down and enjoy them though, damn 5 second atten-hehe, i googled "boobs", hehe

Re:Hmmm

[ninjakoala]

I believe this to be universally applicable. The more music I've listened to, the more I appreciate different kinds. I've slowly expanded to the point where I am now. I can listen to anything from Wagner, Mozart to Prince, Sting to Slayer, Manowar to The Time, D-A-D, to Bad Religion, Exploited and so on. When people ask me "what do you listen to?" I usually answer "good music" - it's the only bulletproof answer, since good/bad music is not a constant. I have stuff I can't listen to any more due to over exposure such as Nirvana, Veruca Salt, Strauss and many others. But the journey is the exciting bit.

Re:Hmmm

[TapeCutter]

Exactly, thats what makes "Frazier Crane" into a sit-com. I like Classical (the 9th was great score for Clockwork Orange) but I also like Pink Floyd, Madona and Eminem. I suppose that means my musical taste is immature? So fucking what? The whole idea of music is to enjoy it's emotions not worship it's practioners.

Re:Hmmm

[jazzman251]

What I mean is, music, like wine, is an acquired taste.

True, yet early music should not be forgotten once your ear is trained. The music that you are so fond of today was built off of the music that you've 'grown out of'. The building procedure was hundreds of years long, but it is the foundation. I still love to listen to Haydn, Mozart, Shubert, Brahms, Smetana, and other baroque-early romantic composers as well as Crumb, Berg, Scrabin, and other modern composers (and everything in the middle, plus lots of jazz). What I love to do is explore both modern and CPP (common practice period) composers, and try to find any connections betweeen them. Its a wholistic effect (listening to one enhances listening to the other and vise-versa). Its good to not stray on one side of the musical spectrum. Here's an excerpt from a poem from the Tao that will hopefully reinforce my point.

When people see some things as beautiful, other things become ugly.
When people see some things as good, other things become bad.

Being and non-being create each other.
Difficult and easy support each other.
Long and short define each other.
High and low depend on each other.
Before and after follow each other.

Therefore the master acts without doing anything, and teaches without saying anything.
Things arise and she lets them come;
things disappear and she lets them go.
She has but doesn't expect.
When her work is done, she forgets it.
That is why it lasts forever.

Re:Hmmm

[Anonymous Coward]

"I've always thought that Beethoven's 9th symphony (and Beethoven generally) was incredibly overrated, just because everyone has heard of Ode to Joy."

'Ode to Joy' is the one piece of music which moves me to tears every time I hear it. It's not the music, it is the association. When the Berlin wall came down, 'Ode to Joy' (tweaked to 'Ode to Freedom') was performed in the former killing zone between east and west Germany. For many people, that piece of music is forever associated with the begining of a new world. That day changed everything, no longer do we live under the threat of a global nuclear holocaust which could arrive at any instant.

Re: Hmmm

[Black Parrot]

> Try Shostakovich , and perhaps Rimsky-Korsakov - I love Rach

I love Rach Music too. It was great to see some of the classic bands reunite for the Live 8 concerts yesterday.

Re:Hmmm

[marcop]

I can understand that one's personal music taste changes, but your post makes it seem like Beethoven's 9th is something of a bygone era (musically speaking). Someone else mentioned that Beethoven's music evolved as he became more mature (again, compared to his 9th). I don't think that one can classify his 9th as immature, annoying, etc.

His 9th symphony was composed at the end of his life. I can understand perhaps calling his early symphonies "immature" but his later ones were works of an original, genius mind.

The 9th symphony was the first symphony to add singers in a symphony. I have heard some people refer to it as a work that helped start the Romantic period. Finally, Mahler spent his entire life trying to immitate the "greatness" of Beethoven's 9th. Whether he succeeded or not is a matter of interpretation.

Re:Hmmm

[Anonymous Coward]

You're the type of classical music lover that always makes me laugh. In order to show how sophisticated and superior they are, they snub the big names and tell us how they really developed into liking the retatively unknown (except to the special niche of sophisticated people, of course) X, Y and Z.

Mahler is unknown? Ligeti is unknown? even seen 2001: A Space Odyssey?

It's not the GP who's sophisticated, it's you who's crass. All the composers he cited are very well known and appreciated around the world. You on the other hand... how do you like that new Britney Spear album?

Re:Hmmm

[ThJ]

They're unknown to me, at least. I don't collect classic music but as a member of the general public I don't know who they are.

Re:Hmmm

[agraupe]

It's funny because it's true... snobbism has probably led him away from listening to other good music, because it doesn't fit his image of what he should listen to.

Re:Hmmm

[soliptic]

I wonder what Beethoven you've been listening to!?

In other words, I do know what you mean, but I find it odd you include Beethoven in that group. I don't really put him alongside Vivaldi and Handel. I can agree that some classical forms have (sadly) become rather twee and pompous sounding, I can't but Beethoven in there. His stuff is seriously daring, the harmonies and chord movements are cutting-edge, they were shocking then and they can still be shocking now. Beethoven was light years ahead of his time, I consider him very much alongside Debussy, over a century later, in smashing through boundaries of acceptible harmony.

Obviously, though, Beethoven is very wide-ranging. There's the inevitable debate as to whether you file him as the last classicist or the first romantic - either way his career roughly seems to bridge the two, so there are Vivaldi-esque and Handel-esque compositions in there for you to dismiss if you want, but there are also genius works you could see as proto-Mahler, proto-Rachmaninoff - so if you're writing Beethoven off completely I think you might be missing some delights.

Re:Hmmm

[Anonymous Coward]

Since this guy forgot to quote his source here it is. It's from Wikipedia (of course)

Of course, there is no way that the GP could have used any other source. The only real source of information on the internet is Wikipedia. There are absolutely no other places on the internet where you can find poems by Schiller.

Re:Hmmm

[secolactico]

c# minor is an amazing piece of music

GO MICROSOFT!

Re:Hmmm

[CausticPuppy]

Many classical forms have become pompous, whiny and annoying to modern ears.

I believe this is because classical music is most often used in whiny and annoying contexts, so people seem to develop that association. It's unfortunate, but true.

I, for example, can't stand any Vivaldi, Haendel, Beethoven.

I definitely would NOT lump Beethoven in with Vivaldi and Handel. That just doesn't make any sense to me. The musical styles are completely different. Beethoven was the first composer to really break out of the "classical" mold and start playing with new textures, new instruments, new chord progressions, etc. He brought much more emotion into his music than Vivaldi and Handel, for whom composing was basically just a job.
Beethoven's music is very complex and even today you can hear Beethoven influences in modern film scores (John Williams, etc). If you spend time studying the music and the scores, you realize what a musical genius Beethoven really was. He was a master of form above all else. But in order to appreciate the form, you have to listen to a complete symphony, all movements. This is why I'm annoyed by the fact that most people only know the cell phone ringer versions of a Beethoven symphony.
By the way, I think I should mention Mozart. I believe he is overrated-- he was a genius for sure, but his music doesn't do anything for me. It seems to lack that vital connection to the listener.

Re: Hmmm

[MsGeek]

The original length of the Compact Disk was designed so that Beethoven's 9th could fit on a single disk. Now, of course, we have the ability to cram 80 minutes worth of music onto a single CD.

BTW we just succeeded in slashdotting Auntie Beeb.

Re:Hmmm

[TheLittleJetson]

Watching an amazing goal is fun. But it is nowhere near the same experience as watching a full game at the edge of your seat, and experienceing an amazing last-minute goal in its context.

After sitting through an entire game of soccer, it would take little to excite me.

Re: Hmmm

[mbius]

Famously, during the premiere performance of the 3rd, someone in the audience shouted that he'd "give a kreutzer" for it to be done and over with.

And ironically, the composer wasn't deaf yet.

Re:Hmmm

[Anonymous Coward]

They key to Mozart is his Operas. Grab a libretto and really listen to Le Nozze di Figaro and Don Giovianni. His musical portrayal of people as living, breathing, complex things completely transcended the depiction of characters at the time and has yet to be surpassed. When you get those in your head your understanding and apprecition of his other music will rise to a new level. For instance you will hear how 'operatic' the later piano concerots are.

Re:Hmmm

[jhylkema]

and... Olivier Messaien.

Egh . . . just avoid the Livre d'Orgue. I sat through a concert of Messiaen's organ works at my church, the Livre d'Orgue was one of the pieces played. 47 minutes of atonal, disjointed crap. "I'm going to randomly hit every stop on this organ!" Later, the music director (guy with a Ph.D who knows from good music) told me I was deserving of a Purple Heart for sitting through it.

Be that as it may, it's great that the BBC is making this available and it's great that real music is finally getting some mention on /. For the ADHD crowd, no, it's not Nine Inch Nails and yes, it really is that long.

Re:Hmmm

[Phrogger]

> It's not like you were the only one to grow up.
> Beethoven did it, too. Did you ever listen to Beethoven's late string quartets?
> They're legendary and noone in their right mind could call them "pompous", "whiny" or "annoying".

Unfortunately, recommending "late string quartets" assumes a familiarity with Beethoven's body of music that the receipient knows what is early, what is late and what is encompassed by "late string quartets".

Would someone knowledgable please tell me specifically which pieces are in the group of "late string quartets" so that I know what I'm looking for?

Re:Hmmm

[Anonymous Coward]

These days, I enjoy Mahler, Rachmaninoff, or Franck much more

Rachmaninoff?! Rachmaninoff is infamous for being more whiny and pompous than any of his predecessors.

I agree in general with your post. But that example was just really, really crass.

Re:Hmmm

[RWerp]

String quartets op. 127 (128?) and beyond. You know what an opus is.

Re:Hmmm

[Raven_Stark]

I've never been a music geek, but after hearing the 9th today, I think that may change.

It is true, you have to listen to the whole thing. This was the first time I've ever done so and I can't begin to explain what a difference it makes to hear it all together in the intended order. I never really understood before that a symphony creates its own vocabulary and language as it progresses so by the end it says all sorts of things that I can't put into words.

I feel as if I've been somehow raped but in a good way. It keeps making me think of the myth where Zeus becomes an eagle and snatches Ganymede away to Mount Olympus to be his lover and cupbearer. I see it as Zeus making the boy into a god, but at a price. That's the 9th to me, Beethoven dug his talons into me, and for an hour I became a god in Beethoven's heaven and experienced joy so profound it hurt like hell. It was a truly mind altering experience.

Re:Hmmm

[ettlz]

I sat through a concert of Messiaen's organ works at my church, the Livre d'Orgue was one of the pieces played. 47 minutes of atonal, disjointed crap.

Thanks for that! It sounds really interesting. Tonality is over-rated. I'll have to take another trip to the university's "reference-only" music resource room. With my laptop. Most of Messaien is an "acquired taste". Turangalila-Symphonie sounds like a mess when you first listen to it, but after about five goes your brain starts to make sense of it.

For the ADHD crowd, no, it's not Nine Inch Nails and yes, it really is that long.

OK, you can diss Messaien all you like, but leave those exceedingly long fasteners alone! I mean, what next? "The melody of Ayers, Everall and Harris's Mesmeric Enabling Device was saturated with late-eighties cheeze, evocative of Pete Waterman snorting parmezan off the black keys of a Casio?"

Re:Hmmm

[Reaperducer]

I've slowly expanded to the point where I am now.

Sounds like a new .sig.

Re:Hmmm

[Anonymous Coward]

Listen to yourself, man. Do you do this every time some slightly-less-than-mainstream names get mentioned?

This isn't about snobbery. If you listened to some of the damn music you'd probably agree with the poster. Mozart/Beethoven's music are the very reason you get CDs like "music for people who hate classical music" published.

For what you think is elitism, go see John Cage lovers or other avant-garde cacaphony audiences.

BTW, Bach was the best ever.

Re:Hmmm

[Neop2Lemus]

Barenboim conducted Das Konzert celebrating the end of The Wall. The 7th symphony is nothing special but the first piano concerto is a brilliant performance.

Re:Hmmm

[Neop2Lemus]

An Intersting point in support of your argument:

The Ode to Joy (orignally Ode to Freedom but changed due to the censor) is Europe's new 'National' Anthem. And what better piece of music can you think of for that role? What piece of music could represent a united Europe, the cradle and defender of western civilization, now finally and perhaps permanently becoming free of the millenia of wars and internal strife?

I agree, Beethoven is, if anything, more valid today than ever before, thought he grandparent poster is being given an unnecessarily hard time over his views.

Re:Hmmm

[Neop2Lemus]

Mahler a bit pompus?

How can you even mention the word 'pompus' without mentioning Wagner in the same sentence?! Shame on you, Shame! Shame!

/Big Wagner fan though.

Would you recommend anything by Mahler for me please?

Re:Hmmm

[Neop2Lemus]

I especially recommend String Quartet in A minor, Op.132: A Song of Thanksgiving in the Lydian mode, offered to the Divinity by a convalescent; performed by the Quartetto Italiano.

I have the double CD set from Philips (1 and 2). I would unequivocally state, is the only time I have paid what the disc was worth.

Truth be told, I still don't understand a good 9/10ths of those late quartets but of what I do, it is Beethoven at his clearest, most personel, and most pertinent. He speaks perhaps his clearest ever here. He wrote them at the end of his life, it is as if he knew he was going to die so he sat down to write the greatest music he had written yet (these were done 2 years after the 9th), and to write the most personal and messaging (for lack of a better word) music for people.

Can you recommend any of his other quartets to me?

Re:Hmmm

[Neop2Lemus]

It was written as an Ode to Freedom but was changed for the censor.

And it is the EU's new 'national anthem' (as I posted above), but I do get what you're saying.

Re:Hmmm

[TapeCutter]

"You on the other hand... how do you like that new Britney Spear album?"

Wow, no kidding, Britney has a new album!

I think the GP was trying to make the point that there is a lot of snobbery surrounding certain types of art and music, ie: some people look down at others because they don't have "sophistcated tastes" that took years to learn ...err I mean develop.

By all means share your opinions about what you do and don't like, but running people down because of the music that they enjoy is crass and immature (yes, that also applies to poeple who like B. Spears. or The Bay City Rollers).

Re:Hmmm

[RWerp]

"Lied von der Erde".

Re:Hmmm

[mako1138]

Well, there's the symphonies. The best known is probably the 2nd, 'Resurrection'. I also recommend the 5th. If you want pomposity, look to the 3rd. The songs from 'Des Knaben Wunderhorn' are fairly well known too.

Re:Hmmm

[RWerp]

I'm just an amateur, I have no ability to critically distinguish between the works of such genius like Beethoven and say "this is good" and "skip that". I think all Beethoven's quartets are worth listening to. The early ones are light and like, a bit shallow when compared to the old ones, but they still sound great and on many occasions I preferred to listen to them than to the later ones.

Re: Hmmm

[mako1138]

Snide comments aside, do check out some Rachmaninoff if you haven't already. The playing gets pretty hardcore and downright violent. The 3rd Concerto is legendary in that respect.

Re:Hmmm

[Neop2Lemus]

Thanks, I'll check them out.

Re:Hmmm

[RWerp]

A short quiz: what piece of literature probably inspired the 2nd?

Re:Hmmm

[Anonymous Coward]

They're unknown to me, at least. I don't collect classic music but as a member of the general public I don't know who they are.

And as most members of the general public, you are ill-educated and, sadly, proud of staying so. By the way, it's classical music...

Re:Hmmm

[ThJ]

Not proud. I suspect that I've been fed the same "easy for the public to understand" music as everyone else. There's much more classical music out there than what you find on those "Best of" albums, but as you know, availability is key.

About "classic" vs "classical" it's probably from Norwegian. "Classic" "Klassiker". "Classical music" "Klassisk musikk". "Klassisk" is more similar to "Classic" than it is to "Classical" and "Klassiker" is more similar to "Classical" than "Classic", as you can see, which is probably why I made that mistake. ;)

Re:Hmmm

[mink]

"I feel as if I've been somehow raped but in a good way."

I'm almost tempted to change my sig.

Re:Hmmm

[mink]

I find that with overplayed artists, it's best not to drop them, but simply avoid the 1-2 overplayed songs (most often all the other work they do is forgotten) there is usually some good stuff outside of the "hits" that get overplayed.

Number kick

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, now that Slashdot knows about it, you can bet that number will rise exponentially...

Re:Number kick

[Anonymous Coward]

Exponentially? You keep using that word. Etc :)

Earlier Performances?

[Josuah]

So, where can I get the earlier performances? I assume someone might have them available for download somewhere. Thanks. :)

Re:Earlier Performances?

[Anonymous Coward]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beethoven Wikipedia has a selection of good recordings available (though some of the solo piano pieces are MIDI). Of the symphonies, only his 5th is available, but there is a variety of other works there as well. I would recommend the first movement of opus 30 in A :)

Re:Earlier Performances?

[LiquidCoooled]

Heres something I found (either on slash itself, or from boingboing)

http://www.commontunes.org/beethovenssymphonies

its the 1st 5 as grabbed from the bbc

Re:Earlier Performances?

[Biogenesis]

Can anyone get these to work? I can only get the evil red face from Azureus...

Re:Earlier Performances?

[burnerO]

Here are some additional (non-torrent) download links : http://www.mp3music.bz/mp3/browse.php?category=603

Re:Earlier Performances?

[Wieland]

Yes I can. And they're pretty fast too. Seems I'm not the only /.er downloading them right now.

Re:Earlier Performances?

[drauh]

Here's a torrent for all nine

Re:Earlier Performances?

[Anonymous Coward]

Please delete the above post as it is in violation of the licence of the music to republish it. It is an awful disregard of the good intentions from the BBC to publish the musical works and will only deter other organisations from doing the same.

Re:Earlier Performances?

[Biogenesis]

Urgh, I should hand in my geek badge for this one. I had port 6969 DNAT'ed on my gateway to my computer because a few days ago I was hosting a .torrent :p. Anyway thanks for the report, it urged me to try harder at fixing the problem :).

Re:Earlier Performances?

[Anonymous Coward]

From the download page at BBC:
You may not copy, reproduce, edit, adapt, alter, republish, post, broadcast, transmit, make available to the public, or otherwise use this audio in any way except for your own personal, non-commercial use.

Looks like personal, non-commercial use to me.

Re:Earlier Performances?

[MsGeek]

This is working. (Not slashdotted yet.)

All 9 are here. Outstanding. Sehr gut!

Re:Earlier Performances?

[simpsone]

Thank you so much. I have 6-9 and have been looking for torrents of the first 5.

Re:Earlier Performances?

[Anonymous Coward]

You may not copy, reproduce, edit, adapt, alter, republish, post, broadcast, transmit, make available to the public, or otherwise use this audio in any way except for your own personal, non-commercial use.

Looks like you fail reading to me.

Re:Earlier Performances?

[Anonymous Coward]

You may not copy, reproduce, edit, adapt, alter, republish, post, broadcast, transmit, make available to the public, or otherwise use this audio in any way except for your own personal, non-commercial use.

Looks like you fail reading to me.

Looks like you fail to understand the word "except".

Re:Earlier Performances?

[NeoSkandranon]

Does that include the "between the ears" reworking of the 5th? That's the one i'm really interested in

Re:Earlier Performances?

[m50d]

Or perhaps he fails caring about copyright laws?

Re:Earlier Performances?

[chrispl]

We removed the Beethoven Symphonies torrent due to BBC license restrictions.

You made a mistake posting this link. Looks like the attention got it removed.

Re:Earlier Performances?

[Anonymous Coward]

You may not copy, reproduce, edit, adapt, alter, republish, post, broadcast, transmit, make available to the public, or otherwise use this audio in any way except for your own personal, non-commercial use.

Looks like you fail reading to me.

Dude, the word "except" negates all that. All of that that you bolded is allowed as long as it is for "personal, non-commercial" use. Now who failed their reading test again?

Re:Earlier Performances?

[paxmark1]

Question, if the original host of the bittorrent have to pull the plug (as the bittorrent of the post a little previous did), will the bittorrent still work for those staying up?

thanks

Re:Earlier Performances?

[DavemanDeluxe]

The problem with that perspective is that allowing music to be copied by others no longer falls under personal use. That becomes making the music publically available for another person's (though still non-commercial) use. If you wanted to make a music video or a film using this music for your own enjoyment and not for sale would be OK though.

Re:Earlier Performances?

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem with that perspective is that allowing music to be copied by others no longer falls under personal use. That becomes making the music publically available for another person's (though still non-commercial) use. If you wanted to make a music video or a film using this music for your own enjoyment and not for sale would be OK though.

Or maybe they just mean "personal" as opposed to corporate. I.e., you can't have your corporation take possession of the license and use it, even if non-commercial. If you had a non-profit corporation use the recordings in a PSA, that would be illegal.

I honestly don't believe the BBC meant to prohibit sharing the music. They just wanted to make sure no one uses it in a commercial or a film.

If they had really wanted to keep us from sharing these recordings, they would have written a license that clearly prohibited it.

Re:Earlier Performances?

[cos(0)]

If you choose to download the torrents, click the download links on BBC anyway -- their goal is to ascertain the public's interest in downloading these files.

Re:Earlier Performances?

[drauh]

the only link i can find is a real audio stream:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/beethoven/ram/btebeeth oven.ram

i don't think they put out an mp3 of it.

where to find 1-5?

[incuso]

I missed the previous downloads. Any mirror?

Thanks, M.

Re:where to find 1-5?

[eggoeater]

Here is the abbreviated "terms of use" for the download:

Download disclaimer: The BBC grants you a 7-day, non-exclusive licence to download this Beethoven Experience audio. You may not copy, reproduce, edit, adapt, alter, republish, post, broadcast, transmit, make available to the public, or otherwise use this audio in any way except for your own personal, non-commercial use. You may not use this file for the purpose of promoting, advertising, endorsing or implying a connection with you (or any third party) and the BBC, its agents or employees. The BBC will not be liable for any loss or damage which you may suffer as a result of or connected with the download or use of this file. For further details see the BBC's terms of use.

This sucks. If they're going to let you download them for free they should let you redistribute them...as long as it's for free of course.

Re:where to find 1-5?

[Bozzio]

This sucks. If they're going to let you download them for free they should let you redistribute them...as long as it's for free of course.

Why, though? Because you feel like it?

It is still their content, and so they decide... no matter how much it makes people whine that it's not absolutely free.

I've always wondered why there isn't more of this

[nurhussein]

Free classical music downloads. Sure, the recording of the performance is still copyrighted, but aren't there any "free classical performers" out there?

That is AWESOME!

[interactive_civilian]

Luckily, they have not yet been /.ed, so I'm downloading now.

Does anyone have links to the first 5 (if it is even still legal to download them from anywhere)?

Anyway, this sort of thing is very cool. I have not listened to much Beethoven (aside from bits and peices in movies and such), so something like this is an excellent opportunity. If anyone knows any places to legally download performances of other classics, please post them.

I love getting free, good music from the internet. The Internet Achive's Audio section is my very good friend, as is LegalTorrents. Granted, that is completely different music from this, but still it is awesome to be able to enjoy music being made by people who love making music more than making money.

Re:That is AWESOME!

[aurb]

Don't forget scene.org.

Re:That is AWESOME!

[Anonymous Coward]

BBC getting slashdotted? You're kidding?

Re:That is AWESOME!

[isecore]

If you're into electronic dancemusic then Baygroove is the place for you. Freely available music that's perfectly legal to distribute in any way you might like.

Re:That is AWESOME!

[jazzman251]

I have not listened to much Beethoven (aside from bits and peices in movies and such), so something like this is an excellent opportunity.
Why? is it really too hard to spend money on music? or is a 5 dollar bargain cd of weiner philharmoniker too pricey

If anyone knows any places to legally download performances of other classics, please post them.
http://www.itunes.com/

Re:That is AWESOME!

[Rxke]

it's a bit weird to hear the announcer introducing the piece.
At first I was going to complain about that, but then I thought it was kind of neat, to get a bit of background info about the pieces
Not too sure about the stuff about how and when to download it, though.. They could've scrapped the talk about the downloading stuff, just put that in the datapath (or whatever it is called) of the mp3, so you can read instead of having to listen to that.

Overall, nice shot.

Re:That is AWESOME!

[WolfDeusEx]

Slashdot the BBC, hahahahahahahahaha

I'd like to see that happen. Lol.

Some where on the BBC website is a diagram of their network design. Its huge.

Re:That is AWESOME!

[Anonymous Coward]

What happens if you dont own hypePod?

There are pehaps, people who might use other operating systems, mp3 players and music apps. AMAZING!!

Re:That is AWESOME!

[Nate4D]

I love getting free, good music from the internet. The Internet Achive's Audio section is my very good friend, as is LegalTorrents. Granted, that is completely different music from this, but still it is awesome to be able to enjoy music being made by people who love making music more than making money.

As a semi-pro musician, I get really, really tired of seeing other geeks bash musicians who charge for their work.

Certainly, there are performers who do it for nothing but the money - but coincidentally enough, they usually suck royally as musicians.

A large number of musicians charge for what they do because they like to do it, and if enough people are willing to pay them for their music, they can quit their day job, and spend more time creating the art that they love to do.

What's so bad about that?

Re:That is AWESOME!

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.classicalarchives.com/

Re:That is AWESOME!

[somegeekgirl]

I agree. I can't understand this attitude that music should magically always be free.

Re:That is AWESOME!

[Anonymous Coward]

Mind the audience you're preaching to... A lot of us here write open source software that can be used freely (as in both beer and speech), so we can't see anything wrong with musicians also creating performances that can be listened to freely (at least as in beer if not speech).

Re:That is AWESOME!

[arose]

What's so bad about that?

1. I don't like to buy without hearing first.
2. There is probably no resonable way for me to buy your music.

Re:That is AWESOME!

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, I think the BBC is going to manage to slashdot this.

Re:That is AWESOME!

[Kwil]

You can write software in small discrete chunks.

You try to write music a bar or two at a time and you're going to wind up with a mess.

Re:That is AWESOME!

[Fluk3]

Sigh.... So many kids think everything should be free. The cuture of entitlement is disgusting.

How are performers supposed to pay for food and shelter?

They deserve to be paid.

As far as linux being free, pfft...you get what you pay for (a virtually useless desktop environment for anyone who needs to actually *produce* something on a daily basis).

And people who do nothing but develop free software will soon learn they cant pay their bills and will end up living in a box. Or, they will get smart and realize they should be paid for their efforts if others find it usefull and gain from its useage.

Only kids living in their parents basements think everything should be free cause they've never worked a day in their life and mooch of their folks or society.

Moochers never prosper.

Re:That is AWESOME!

[gardyloo]

Anyway, this sort of thing is very cool. I have not listened to much Beethoven (aside from bits and peices in movies and such), so something like this is an excellent opportunity. If anyone knows any places to legally download performances of other classics, please post them.

It's certainly not *free*, but if you're going to China anyway...
I went to China last summer. In all big cities one can get copies of DVDs (western movies, sometimes a few days before they're actually released to the theatres in the US, and eastern GungFu movies), but the qualities are usually not the greatest. Also, although buying stuff like this from street vendors is generally ignored by the authorities there (they're on major streets in, for example, Shanghai), we didn't want to take chances, and so we just browsed.
_However_, some legitimate places of business sell music CDs (and full quality ones) at cut-rate prices. I was able to pick up a complete set of Beethoven's piano sonatas recorded by Deutsche Gramophon, and just rebranded by some Chinese company, for about $8 US, at a grocery/clothing store. That's the sort of boxed set which would run anywhere from $60 to $150 in the US, depending on who performed them (these were Kempff; not my favorite interpreter of Beethoven, but I didn't pass up the deal).

Re:That is AWESOME!

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude! you answered your own question:

How are performers supposed to pay for food and shelter?

... living in their parents basements

Re:That is AWESOME!

[arose]

Dear mod, please explain where you see the trolling.

Re:That is AWESOME!

[arose]

They deserve to be paid.

Deserve?

Re:That is AWESOME!

[Anonymous Coward]

Right. So having accepted that you suck as a programmer and that nobody will pay you for it, you now expect everyone to work for free.

Great. So logical!

Re:That is AWESOME!

[adamjaskie]

I think it is nice to have that speaking there. The main audience of this music is people who haven't heard the symphonies before, or have never really listened to them. The description of the piece, what to listen for, etc. is quite useful for people like that. They probably want to skip it the second time through, though.

You really have to JUST LISTEN to the Beethoven symphonies. At least once, just listen to them. Don't use it as background music, just listen for the themes and variations, the instruments playing off of one another, etc. Sit in a dark room, crank it up on your stereo, sit in a comfortable chair, and listen.

And these really aren't great recordings, unfortunately. The conductor takes everything VERY fast, MUCH faster than any other recording I have heard, and it really detracts from the music. It sounds neat the first time through in some movements of some of the symphonies, but it is just too much. The orchestra is very good, but the conductor is mediocre compared to the greats. I LOVE my live recording of Wilhelm Furtwangler with the Beyreuth Fesival Orchestra. It has some sound issues, sounds like someone brushed a microphone at one point, and a couple clams, but the music just shines through all of the defects.

Re:That is AWESOME!

[Nate4D]

Yeah, I know that OSS is popular around here, and I'm not a stranger to it - my software engineering group from college released our project under the GPL. I like Free Software. I use it every day.

But, I don't think it's the only legitimate option, even for software development, and the OSS approach is fundamentally untenable for creating art, whether that be music, visual art, novels, games, or anything else.

Most Free software is developed by a bunch of hobbyists in their free time. All well and good; each person takes a small section and creates it, or perhaps adds a few bugfixes over the weekend; eventually, the tool becomes useful.

Try composing or arranging music that way. It really doesn't work. You can't really take a large number of people and have each one write a little music; the result won't be a cohesive whole in the least.

The fundamental difference, though, is this: badly written code is not a problem in a piece of software, so long as it performs the intended function reasonably well, or even at all, since a large proportion of the Free software users out there will use utter crap tools to avoid touching commercial software. Poorly written and/or performed music just sounds like crap.

To elaborate: it's possible to write code that performs a given function, but isn't documented, or perhaps runs a little slowly, or just accomplishes its task in a painfully ugly way. Once it compiles, if the user is happy, it doesn't matter to him.

With music, even if you have a solid grounding in theory, and write music according to that theoretical background (to analogize, write "music that compiles"), it's really easy to produce bad music. I know; I've heard a lot of it. Heck, I've produced more than I'd like to admit in my compositional career (but I try not to let that stuff into public ;).

For the record, I'm not at all opposed to giving away music; I just don't think people should expect artists to give away their work for free. Musicians, painters, writers; we like to do what we do. Sometimes that means we give free concerts, or crank out a sketch of a friend's D&D character, because it's fun to do. If someone told me, "Hey, I like what you do. I'll give you food, clothing, and a place to work, if in exchange you'll write and perform music," I wouldn't even think; I'd take it. No money needed, I'd be happy, just like the dudes who had patrons back during the Italian Renaissance. Eventually I might want to move on to something else, but certainly not for a few years...

Unfortunately, patrons don't really happen these days, so a musician's only real shot at playing/writing/recording full-time is to charge for it, in the hope that eventually he'll be able to make a living off of it.

For now, I program to live (fortunately, I really enjoy that too :-), and work on art, music, writing, etc. in my spare time.

And, on the off-chance you'd like to see some of that, you could check out the not-very-good samples I have on that hardly-ever-touched website... Boy, there's something else I need to work on...

Keep in mind that most of what's up there are musical sketches, rough ideas that I found interesting enough to put up. They'd all need lots of refinement before I'd call them good, or anything.

Re:That is AWESOME!

[SoupIsGoodFood_42]

...And a real mess if you try to play a symphony one or two bars at a time...Which is a better anology for the original point ;)

Re:That is AWESOME!

[Nevyn]

You can write software in small discrete chunks.

You're trying to tell me complete songs come to you as devine insperation? ... I think not.

You try to write music a bar or two at a time and you're going to wind up with a mess.

You try to write software a line or two at a time, and the obvious argument in the other direction is that more than a few "commercially successful" songs have been based on a couple of bars.

It's not as obvious that all music has to be free right now, but musicians can certainly do better than "here's a CD, please pay $15" ... even if it's just live recordings or "b sides" for free download. Saying "I want to make a living", is not the same as "give me all your money".

Re:That is AWESOME!

[mink]

"Try composing or arranging music that way. It really doesn't work. You can't really take a large number of people and have each one write a little music; the result won't be a cohesive whole in the least."

I have seen it work with a group of people who had no contact besides e-mail and usenet.

Test Results

[PopeAlien]

TEST #1: Appetite for free downloads
- status: complete
result: people like free downloads.

TEST #2: Ongoing Appetite for free downloads
- status: incomplete
result: pending...

I just cant wait to see what the results are!!

Re:Test Results

[Anonymous Coward]

The really sad thing about all this is, judging by some of the previous replies to this article, is that the BBC offers the second part of the series, and everyone wants the FIRST part -- legally or not!

God, you're all a bunch of sissies.

Re:I've always wondered why there isn't more of th

[Jack Taylor]

The best musicians are usually too busy trying to scrape a living to play in a recording for free. Even if some musicians are willing to play for nothing, there are many other costs involved. You have to hire the music, which includes a fee payable to the estate of the composer in most cases. You have to hire a recording venue with a nice acoustic. And you have to pay someone who knows what they're doing to record it. I'm sure there are lots of classical recordings that don't recoup even these costs...

A warning to audiophiles

[Frodo Crockett]

The mp3s are CBR 128kbps. Ugh. When will people learn to use ABR instead of CBR? You wind up with fractionally larger files that sound MUCH better!

Re:A warning to audiophiles

[Pyrion]

Bah. LAME --aps is the way to go.

Re:A warning to audiophiles

[k8to]

Well, if we ever move away from mp3, all the replacement technologies are always ABR or VBR effectively. AAC, OGG, windows media, you name it.

Re:A warning to audiophiles

[Anonymous Coward]

Excuse my ignorance, but what is ABR?

Re:A warning to audiophiles

[odaen]

ABR is average bitrate, that means the bitrate changes dynamically throughout the song depending on which parts need it most. For this a psychoacoustic model is made which effectively acts like the human ear.

Examples of places where you can reduce quality are after loud sounds followed by relatively quiet sound, for example Wild Thing.

Re:A warning to audiophiles

[moonbender]

I wasn't sure either, so I looked it up: Average Bit Rate. I'm still not entirely sure what the difference between ABR and VBR - Variable Bit Rate - is...

Re:A warning to audiophiles

[DA-MAN]

Variable Bit Rate = mp3 file encoded with vbr enabled, allows bitrate to raise or lower in reaction to what is being encoded.

Average Bit Rate = Average Bit Rate for mp3 encoded with the Variable Bit Rate Setting.

Re:A warning to audiophiles

[moonbender]

D'oh - that wasn't too difficult. I had assumed they were two different ways of encoding an MP3 with a non-constant bit rate.

Re:A warning to audiophiles

[Anonymous Coward]

ABR (average bit rate) fixes upon one amount that the overall bitrate throughout a song should average out to at the end. Variable bit rate has a little more play involved...it usually specifies a range, say 128 to 256kbps that the song should stay within. It is weighted toward the center of the range, but depending on the overall complexity of the song, the encoder can apply a higher bitrate. (Speaking solely from my experience...) it appears that in most cases the average bitrate drawn from an entire album encoded in VBR will tend to be the middle of whatever the specified range may be.

Re:A warning to audiophiles

[Anonymous Coward]

Difference: As most people know, CBR uses a constant bitrate over the whole file (e.g. 128kbits/s).

VBR works with a constant QUALITY (or badness) setting and tries to guarantee that the quality won't degrade below a certain level by letting the bitrate float up and down as necessary. The advantage is that the bitrate is perfectly used up and does not waste precious bits on plain parts (e.g. silence) of a piece of music.
The problem is that there is no real scale for quality so arbitrary numbers get assigned (for the ogg-encoder 1-10). This let's people struggle over determining which quality is ``good enough''.
Another problem is that the target size of the file is not predictable. Usually it falls within certain limits but if the encoder struggles with a complex piece of music, the output file size can deviate considerably.

ABR is a compromise between the two, It let's the bitrate float but guarantees a specified AVERAGE bitrate. Thus it is more efficient than CBR (although not as efficient as VBR because it has to establish somewhat tighter control and has to let the quality drop if it threatens to exceed the average too much) but also predictable in the size of the resulting file, though not as precisely as CBR (though the deviation is very very slim in most cases). In almost all cases ABR is preferable to CBR if VBR isn't an option.

Re:A warning to audiophiles

[Loonacy]

They are two different ways of encoding an MP3 with a non-constant bit rate.

Re:A warning to audiophiles

[MikkoApo]

Variable Bit Rate was first. VBR means mp3s are encoded with variable bitrate where encoder makes guesses about the needed bitrate based on the content. This allows the encoder to allocate more bits for the parts which really need better quality.

After a while people noticed that the changes in the bitrate were in some cases too audible and reduced the illusion and immersion of the encoded audio.

So, Average Bit Rate tries to avoid that by keeping the variable bitrate somewhere around the specified bitrate.

Re:A warning to audiophiles

[baadger]

Props to the explaination.

I've always wondered why MP3 and other audio formats are not encoded in two passes much like variable bitrate video encoding (XviD, DivX, MPEG-2 (DVD) are all done in this way). The first pass is used to analyse the compressibility of the content so the second pass can scale the bitrate more efficiently to obtain the average bitrate needed to fit the content onto your chosen media (CD, DVD etc).

Anyone?

Re:A warning to audiophiles

[k8to]

An aside: --aps is of course still supported, but in modern lame, the "alt presets" have become the defaults, so `lame --preset standard` will give you the normal idea of pretty transparent encoding.

Personally, I find that much easier to deal with and locate in the docs.

At times I have had found source material which could benefit from --preset extreme.

Re:A warning to audiophiles

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is that there is no real scale for quality
RMS error?

Re:A warning to audiophiles

[Anonymous Coward]

RMS error?

RMS doesn't make errors.

Re:A warning to audiophiles

[jefmes]

Nice description, I had seen those terms before but hadn't bothered to look into what they meant. :)

Re:A warning to audiophiles

[anonymo]

Even if I has difficulties why post this informative comment anonymously I do thank you for clearing up the mp3 YABA (Yet Another Bloody Acronym.
Probably you can recommend a Linux or in worst case Windows utility to convert CDs to MP3-VBR files with some kind of CDDB support for automatic file naming. I'm planning to convert a few hundreds of my CDs, so the more automagical process the better.
I have even ca. 2 m vinyl records too hard to find on CD.
Of course other comments are very wellcome too :-)

Re:A warning to audiophiles

[AEton]

Probably you can recommend a Linux or in worst case Windows utility to convert CDs to MP3-VBR files with some kind of CDDB support for automatic file naming.

CDEX is a standard tool for ripping CD's to uncompressed WAV files or straight to MP3. But it's Windows software.

Other tools are listed in this short guide (the first Google hit for 'linux ripping music', without quotes).

Re:A warning to audiophiles

[MsGeek]

These are perfect for my cheap-ass MP3 CD player, which will hard lock (pull the batteries!) if given an MP3 file it doesn't like.

This will be a nice companion for my trip to San Diego Comic-Con. ^_^ BTW the mp3music.bz site is holding up quite well to my 133c|-|1|\|6. Goddess bless DSL Extreme...my bandwith is rocking hard too.

Re:A warning to audiophiles

[m50d]

KDE 3.4.1 can do it. In the KDE control centre, Audio CDs, MP3 encoder tab, select variable bitrate, then tick "specify average bitrate" and set it to what you want. Then you just copy and paste the tracks from audiocd:/MP3 in konqueror (it appears to do cddb lookups automatically now, since I can't see an option to configure them anymore)

Re:A warning to audiophiles

[Blakey Rat]

Ok, between the trip to the Comic Con, the Japanese smiley, the 1337-speke, the "Goddess bless", the "Planet Baka" sig, and owning a buggy MP3 player that barely works because it's cheap-ass...

I have to say that that post is the geekiest thing I've ever read in my life by far. I don't know whether to congratulate you, or curl into a ball and cry.

Re:A warning to audiophiles

[BillyBlaze]

At the risk of being "that guy," I would have prefered oggenc -q5.

Re:A warning to audiophiles

[Kjella]

RMS error?

RMS error can be used as ground true, meaning that ~0 RMS = perfect sound, but it can have non-zero RMS and still be indistinguishable to the human ear. The trouble with psychoacustics is to have a true measure for that for all people (individual), all music (very different), all systems(*) hear.

*since on a non-perfect system, the masking may not happen as intended, and the original would have sounded better

Kjella

Re: A warning to audiophiles

[gidds]

iTunes has CDDB support. And on the Mac version at least, you can set it up to use an external encoder such as lame; dunno if you can on the Windows version. Depending on how fussy you are, you might find you need to review the tags anyway -- exactly how you handle compilations, classical works, soundtracks, multi-disc sets, &c may well vary from whoever entered it on CDDB.

Personally, I'd thoroughly recommend you use lame for the encoding, whether you do it manually of via one of the many packages which support it. Personally, I use the options which hydrogenaudio recommended (-V 5 --athaa-sensitivity 1), which tends to give bitrates around 128kbps but quality within spitting distance of 2nd-gen formats like AAC.

Re:A warning to audiophiles

[petermgreen]

do you wan't to end up converting your cds many times?

also do you wan't to wait for conversions whilst doing the very manual process of ripping?

if you care about audio quality and time spent feeding in cds and hdd is reasonablly plentiful then proceed as follows (in batches if desired)

1: rip to an uncompressed format. it may be an idea to use something like cdparanoia to significantly reduce the chances of skips etc in the ripped files.

2: (optional) bulk convert to a lossless format like flac or monkeys audio when your not using the computer for anything else.

3: produce mp3 or whatever files for portable players etc but make sure you keep the lossless versions.

if you don't do this you'll be kicking yourself when a new format becomes dominant as you will have the hard choice between re-ripping everything and transcoding from one lossy format to another with the loss of quality/compressibility that doing so always brings.

Typical

[gowen]

Goddamn communist atheists at the BBC, sharing stuff. Don't they realise that if any of us stop grasping what is ours, society will collapse. You didn't see Jesus Christ preaching about sharing, did you.

Love,
The Republican Party

Re:Typical

[rohan972]

You didn't see Jesus Christ preaching about sharing, did you.

It was the loaves and fishes thing that started it. And you thought they hate bittorrent.

Re:Typical

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmmm. http://www.opensecrets.org/industries/indus.asp?In d=B02

Re:Typical

[Hektor_Troy]

Well ... make it into a catchy slogan of sorts ...

The best way to think of file sharing is Jesus. Didn't he use one loaf of bread and one fish to feed thousands of people?

File sharing: What would Jesus do?

Re:Typical

[skilm]

It's not that we're really for free and open filesharing, it's just that Bush is against it. None of us know why, but he must be stopped!

Love,
The Democrat Party

Re:Typical

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think Republicans have any problem with the idea of you sharing stuff that you own. They do have a problem with you sharing stuff that other people own.

Re:Typical

[Anonymous Coward]

P2P: WWJD?

Re:Typical

[Anonymous Coward]

Umm - it was FIVE loaves and TWO fish...

Re:Typical

[JoshWurzel]

I feel obligated to point out that one of Hollywood's favorite representatives is Howard Berman, D-CA. Bastard is the representative in for the area I grew up in, and my only regret is that I moved away before I could vote against him.

There are plenty of asshole legislators on both sides of the fence in the pocket of the Content Cartels (TM).

Re:I've always wondered why there isn't more of th

[cperciva]

aren't there any "free classical performers" out there?

Yes. The problem is, they're not very good. Unlike popular music, where someone can start to learn guitar and become a world-famous "musician" a few years later (in some cases, this order is reversed), a good quality symphony orchestra contains 50 or more musicians, rarely with less than fifteen years of experience.

As a general rule, if you're a professional classical musician, you can't afford to give away your work for free -- not to mention the costs of renting a recording studio which can fit an entire symphony orchestra. If you're an amateur classical musician (defined as "has a full time job which isn't music"), then unless you're really exceptional, you're not good enough to make recordings which people will want to listen to.

Recordings

[lisany]

Ages ago I found all of Beethoven's work online in a crappy .shn form. It is well over 6GB in total but it sounds brilliant. Is the BBC a little behind the times or what?

Re:Recordings

[baadger]

Google reveals this is a lossless format - info here

What an odd test!

[iritant]

Test users' appetite for downloads?? Why don't they just ask Apple or an Apple shareholder? Better yet, put the old Hitchhikers Guide or Dr. Who episodes online and they'll find out right quick about appetites for downloads!

Re:What an odd test!

[MyForest]

They did post high quality versions of Hitchhikers online whilst they were broadcasting it. This is very useful for those of us with babies to chase around after.

If you were really keen then you could just setup a cron job to grab the low quality versions:

mplayer -quiet -prefer-ipv4 -dumpfile `date --iso-8601`_hitchhikers_low.ram -dumpstream -cache 32 rtsp://rmv8.bbc.net.uk/radio4/hitchhikers/hitchhik ers.ra

or even the high quality version (but sadly it's name changed each week):

mplayer -quiet -prefer-ipv4 -dumpfile `date --iso-8601`_hitchhikers.ram -dumpstream -cache 32 rtsp://rmv8.bbc.net.uk/radio4/hitchhikers/omega.rm

Now the broadcasts have concluded the content is no longer available.

Re:What an odd test!

[shokk]

Hey everybody! I just heard a rumor that they're putting Dr. Who episodes for free download! Seems like the right thing to do is for you all to put them up on torrent since the BBC is going to make them free anyway. I'll wait while you set up your torrents.

Are they ready yet?

Re:What an odd test!

[rsynnott]

The idea is probably to produce data to justifiy funding for more downloads available; the have one of their 10-year contract reviews coming up soon with the government.

This is good but should go farther

[file-exists-p]

I always thought that most countries should those days invest a non-negligeable part of their cultur budget to set up huge on-line databases. I am amazed to see the cost to maintain dusty municipal libraries while I have still no way to get all those music and novels which are in the public domain.

It is still the same tune: when will people in charge realize the power of digital information. One book in a library can be read by one person at one time. It gets wear out, it can be stolen. A book in a library can be read by what ? at most 50 person a year ? How much does it cost to be stored handled, fixed ? That's ridiculous. And municipal libraries should be the place to find computer to access those database if you do not own one.

Also, for that BBC initiative, I read:

Download disclaimer:

The BBC grants you a 7-day, non-exclusive licence to download this Beethoven Experience audio.

You may not copy, reproduce, edit, adapt, alter, republish, post, broadcast, transmit, make available to the public, or otherwise use this audio in any way except for your own personal, non-commercial use.

So I can't give that piece of culture to my grand'ma and my little nephew ? That sucks.

--
Go Debian!

Re:This is good but should go farther

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

You may not copy, reproduce, edit, adapt, alter, republish, post, broadcast, transmit, make available to the public, or otherwise use this audio in any way except for your own personal, non-commercial use.

So I can't give that piece of culture to my grand'ma and my little nephew ? That sucks.

That's pretty standard stuff. You can find very similar disclaimers on CD and cassettes. The point is that you can only *give* it to granny (that is, hand over the CD and part with it yourself).

Of course, nobody's doing it, and the BBC police aren't gonna jump on you the day you give a copy to your grandmother. People have been copying stuff for their friends since it's become possible to copy stuff, and I can't remember anybody getting prosecuted for that, although in theory, it's possible.

Re:This is good but should go farther

[Znork]

So, if I download it ten times, do I have ten legitimate copies I can spread to friends?

Re:This is good but should go farther

[moonbender]

That depends. The usual excemptions to copyright still apply, what is sometimes called unregulated or fair use - especially since there is no copy protection to circumvent. Here in Germany, for instance, I think I'd still have the right to create a private copy and distribute it to friends and family. At least until EUCD2 comes around.

Re:This is good but should go farther

[file-exists-p]

If I understood correctly, in that case the BBC is the copyright owner of the, thus these gentlemen could be "one degre smarter" than the usual owners and put all the stuff under creative commons. They could later on distribute all the deep-trance and rap remix of it :)

--
Go Debian!

Re:This is good but should go farther

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

Presumably :-)

You're right though, those disclaimers don't make any sense for medium-less music. I have a feeling that music providers are at such a loss to contain the whole digital-copying phenomenon that they're clinging to their old legalese, or are unable to come up with new legalese that'd cover digital files efficiently. At any rate, I'm quite sure they don't believe in it at all, and just put it there because they always put it there, more or less.

Re:This is good but should go farther

[davesag]

You may not copy, reproduce, edit, adapt, alter, republish, post, broadcast, transmit, make available to the public, or otherwise use this audio in any way except for your own personal, non-commercial use.

hmm - wonders... does transmit include streaming it from my powerbook to my stereo via AirportExpress?

Re:This is good but should go farther

[Anonymous Coward]

"I am amazed to see the cost to maintain dusty municipal libraries while I have still no way to get all those music and novels which are in the public domain."

For novels visit:

http://www.gutenberg.org/

Project Gutenberg eBooks are free as in beer.

Project Gutenberg eBooks are also free as in speech - mostly.

i.e. You may copy them, give them away and use them in any way you like.

There are 16.000 titles available already, and more are underway - you can also volunteer your time to grow the project!

Re:This is good but should go farther

[Cow Jones]

You may not copy, reproduce, edit, adapt, alter, republish, post, broadcast, transmit, make available to the public, or otherwise use this audio in any way except for your own personal, non-commercial use.

Giving it to your granny qualifies as personal, non-commercial use.
That includes making copies for yourself, for your friends, and singing along with the choir.

Tinfoil hat take off,
main speakers turn on!

Re:This is good but should go farther

[strider44]

only if you get out a screwdriver (or a big knife), open your hard drive, tear out the piece of magnetic strip it's written on and give that to your friends.

Re:This is good but should go farther

[Cinquero]

Agreed.

Re:This is good but should go farther

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey, it's their bandwidth. Go for it.

Re:This is good but should go farther

[jd0g85]

Last time I checked, playing it for the family in your own home counted as personal, non-commercial use. What you're not allowed to do is send a copy to your nephew.

Sucks for the nephew, he may just have to put up with you for a while...

Re:This is good but should go farther

[surprise_audit]

No, I'd say you'd have ten copies that you yourself could listen to over the next 7 days...

Re:This is good but should go farther

[mbius]

At 4 kB/s, if you download it ten times, you're more patient than I am.

Re:This is good but should go farther

[gardyloo]

Project Gutenberg eBooks are free as in beer.

Project Gutenberg eBooks are also free as in speech - mostly.

I do like the concept and availability of eBooks, and especially the P.G. sort. But guess what? If I want to read, either for pleasure or study, I'd much rather do it in print rather than online. And I'm not going to print out the eBooks. I just print out all of /. and have my secretary reply .

Re:This is good but should go farther

[jonbrewer]

I always thought that most countries should those days invest a non-negligeable part of their cultur budget to set up huge on-line databases.Encyclopedia of New Zealand for a good example. They are two years in to a ten year project sponsored by the Ministry of Culture to populate an online resource with as much information as they can.

Re:This is good but should go farther

[jonbrewer]

link: http://www.teara.govt.nz/

Re:This is good but should go farther

[adamjaskie]

You can listen to them for as long as you want. But they only have them avaliable for download on their website for the next 7 days. Well, the 6th is probably nearing the end of it's seven days pretty soon, the 9th should be up until Friday, I think.

What about sound quality of classical downloads?

[QuatermassX]

Maybe I'm just bleary this Sunday morning, but I didn't see a discussion of bitrates or sound quality in any of the Radio 3 FAQs or "Jargon Buster". Tis an issue with any of the online stores offering classical music, too.

Actually, the Jargon Buster is v amusing. Maybe I'm just waaaay out of touch, but I've never come across the terms "iPod Sunday" and "iPodectomy". Yeech. Those wacky Beeb webbies - or have they been cribbing from a PR "Fact sheet"? Hmmmm ...

Sorry, up late watching Live8 - on a side note, was surprised at the tracks from last night's concert in Hyde Park on sale via iTunes, gosh!

So kudos to Radio 3 for making all this available, but maybe they could spare a little more bandwidth for higher bitrates (or even charge a nominal fee for a FLAC or AppleLossless bit of Beethoven)

Thank you!

[interactive_civilian]

I never new that site existed. It looks very cool. Thanks for the link.

my new scene.org ID: berianir

Re:Thank you!

[mink]

If you or anyone is interested I can set up a torrent of the Kosmic Free Music Foundation (KFMF) archives. It is an 8 CD set, some audio format and others data.

Re:What about sound quality of classical downloads

[RPoet]

I've never come across the terms "iPod Sunday" and "iPodectomy"

In fact, the only google hit for "iPod Sunday" is BBC's own Jargon Buster. A few more for "iPodectomy", but only enough to almost fill one google hit page, and one of those are of course the Jargon Buster. One has to wonder if there isn't enough jargon already, since they have to make stuff up?

Classic n00b question...

[antdude]

Is Moonlight Sonata, one of my favorite classical tunes, part of symphonies or is that separate?

Re:Classic n00b question...

[Mrs. Grundy]

The moonlight sonata is beethoven's 14th piano sonata--written for solo piano. It is not from any of the symphonies.

Re:Classic n00b question...

[Wieland]

Well no. Sonata != Symphony.

Symphonies are orchestral works. The Moonlight Sonata (Mondschein, as it's called in German), (no. 14, opus 27 no 2 in C sharp minor) is a solo piece written for a piano. Check wikipedia for a detailed discussion of symphonies and sonatas.

Re:Classic n00b question...

[cmdrbuzz]

Moonlight Sonata is part of the Piano Sonata No. 14 (in C Sharp Minor) Op. 27, No. 2.

Not part of the Symphonies to download unfortunately

Re:Classic n00b question...

[Astart�]

It is not part of the symphonies, it is separate.

Wikipedia has a nice piece on the sonata: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piano_Sonata_No._14_( Beethoven).

+++

Re:Classic n00b question...

[mrmojo]

They are separate, but the symphonies are even better. Try listening to the last movement of the 9th and the second movement of the 7th in particular. Those are very accessible.

Re:Classic n00b question...

[kamukwam]

Well, the Moonlight Sonata _is_ the Piano Sonata No.14. Of which the first part is very well known and therefore also performed too often by people that actually are not able to play it.

Re:Classic n00b question...

[kamukwam]

Well, that is of course a matter of opinion. I for once, like the sonatas more than the symphonies. By the way, you should also listen to the Beethoven piano concertos, they are very good.

Re:Classic n00b question...

[Phil Karn]

Don't listen to just the second movement of the 7th; try the whole thing. Beethoven's 7th is the piece that got me solidly hooked on classical music. In many ways the 7th is even better than the 9th, though the 9th too should be heard in its entirety. The last movement is a different experience after hearing the first three; just listening to the Ode to Joy is like eating dessert on an empty stomach.

As my former landlord used to say, if Beethoven doesn't move you, then you must be dead.

Re:Classic n00b question...

[haggar]

I am not trying to guess what the grandparent post meant to say, but it's important to note that both sonatas and symphonies have one important thing in common: both adhere to the sonata form.

Re:Classic n00b question...

[Wieland]

Incidentally, BBC Radio 3 have in fact also broadcast *all* Beethoven's piano sonatas (including Moonlight). You can listen to them on the BBC website.

Re: Classic n00b question...

[Black Parrot]

> Mondschein, as it's called in German

Yet somehow "Moonshine Sonata" doesn't convey quite the right idea in the Appalachian and Ozark states.

Re:Classic n00b question...

[haggar]

I like all of Beethoven's piano concertos, all of his sonatas and all of his symphonies. Then I like most of his string quartets and trios. I also like his violin concerto.

So, I guess, I like almost all of Beethoven's opus.

And now that I think of it, there's no toher composer whose work I so universally like. Well, maybe Wilhelm Friedeman Bach, but that's just because he wrote so few compositions.

Re:Classic n00b question...

[Neop2Lemus]

Another voice in millions here but can I recommend:

Piano Sonata no.23 in F minor 'Appassionata' op.57
Piano Sonata no.30 in E major op.109
Piano Sonata no.31 in A flat major op.110
Piano Sonata no.32 in C minor op.111
Piano Sonata no.21 in C major 'Waldstein' op.53

If you like the piano.

I'm sure Beethoven has many more sonatas easily as great as these, I just haven't heard them yet. In the first 4 I listed Beethoven is talking directly to you and I'm not making that up (he knew music could do that and wrote it). He's there, in your head and talking about life and how it should be lived, not how you're living it. It's not like reading a book, it's something else.

The Waldstein is a beautiful piece of music like the moonlight.

23 and 21 by Wilhelm Kempff, the rest by Glen Gould

Anyone got any recommendations? These are the ones I know.

Re:Classic n00b question...

[Neop2Lemus]

What do you recommend by Bach (apart from Brandenburg)?

I personally recommend the late string quartets by Beethoven.

Re: Classic n00b question...

[julesh]

> Yet somehow "Moonshine Sonata" doesn't convey quite the right idea in the Appalachian and Ozark states.

I did come across a blues version that was called that at some time in the past. :)

Re:Classic n00b question...

[haggar]

Ummm.... which Bach? I was talking about Wilhelm Friedeman, the one considered the mosttalented of Johann Sebastian Bach's sons. J.S. Bach had other composer sons, too, the most famous bein Carl Philip Emmanuel Bach.

If you talk about Brandenburg Concertos, you are most probably referring to Johann Sebastian Bach.

Re:Classic n00b question...

[Neop2Lemus]

You know, I suspected that there was more than one Bach but was never sure.

I take recommendations of any Bach (or any composer for that matter).

Re:Classic n00b question...

[SoupIsGoodFood_42]

I really love the first part! The last part is a bit too much for me.

Re:Classic n00b question...

[haggar]

OK, the following are, in my opinion, some of the all-time best recordings of some of the greatest classical music compositions.

Best Scarlatti Sonatas recording ever

Greatest recording of Goldberg variations

W. F. Bach

Best recording (and best boy soprano interpretation) of Mahler's 4th

This is just off the top of my head. More can come, if you are interested.

Re:Classic n00b question...

[Neop2Lemus]

Thanks, I shall definately look them up.

My experiance of recommending recordings is limited to Beethoven and Wagner. After that I just know the pieces, and not too much at that (by the standards of someone who knows classical, not the general public though).

The problem with classical music is that, while it is the best music ever made, it is such a vast field that one cannot get into it without a guide or a lot of research (which I've done on the above two composers). Thanks again!

Re:Classic n00b question...

[haggar]

Just be relentless in your research. As you yourself said, classical music is a vast field, but it's a very thankful task to dwell into it.

One more thing: your experience of a particular piece of music depends very much on the performer and the performance. Most of Bernstain's conducteding Beethoven symphonies is excellent and enjoyable, but he is human and so a few duds have slipped through the recordings. And bad performances are most common among overly-edited recordings (way too many takes). Those recordings sound technically perfect but utterly uninvolving, uninspiring, dead. Keep this in mind at all times, and don't hesitate to listen to older, albeit a bit noisy, recordings - many gems hide there.

They will soon be sued...

[ratta]

as they are breaking Beethoven's copyright.

Re:They will soon be sued...

[Anonymous Coward]

Zombie lawyers?!

Re:They will soon be sued...

[RPoet]

Is there any other kind?

Re:They will soon be sued...

[marat]

In fact BBC Philharmonic owns copyright here (Beethoven would also, each for it's part of the job). IANAL though.

Re:They will soon be sued...

[rbarreira]

Wondering why i am doing so strange posts? I am trying to get a "+5,Flamebait" or "-1,Insightful" rating.

Does slashcode allow this at all? Especially the +5 Flamebait one :)

Re:They will soon be sued...

[CableModemSniper]

Both are entirely possible with Underratted and Overrated mods. Those mods don't change the description so all he needs is to get modded as Flamebait or Insightful once and then Under or Over rated to the their desired score.

Re:They will soon be sued...

[damiam]

It was a joke. Beethoven has no copyright, since copyright laws were different in those days (early 1800s) and would have long since expired anyway.

Re:They will soon be sued...

[BillyBlaze]

Wait, you mean copyright used to expire?!1

Re:I've always wondered why there isn't more of th

[phr1]

See for example Magnatune, which has tons of good classical recordings including some from world renowned performers, all under Creative Commons licenses. Granted they are mostly solo and small chamber performances, rather than full scale orchestral works. However, there are certainly professional classical performers willing and able to release stuff under CC. Note also that the BBC downloads are just a 7-day license and you're not allowed to share the files after downloading. It's not much better than a one-time radio broadcast that you can tape off the air.

Re:I've always wondered why there isn't more of th

[Ckwop]

Sure, the recording of the performance is still copyrighted, but aren't there any "free classical performers" out there?

Is this true? I thought copyright was only awarded to ORIGINAL work not performances of such works?

This article at wikipedia states that for one to claim Copyright over a work three basic criteria have to be satifisied: skill, originality and work.

While skill and work criteria are certainly satifisied, originality is not. I'm no legal expert but I expect that one can't claim copyright claim on these works.

People are willing to pay for such performances because they're otherwise hard to come by not because copying these pieces is illegal (although most people probably think it is).

Simon.

Re:I've always wondered why there isn't more of th

[FeatureBug]

I think you're missing something. There are many equally brilliant classical musicians who are not professional performers. Some live too far away from major cities which are the only places you have any chance of finding a job in performing classical music. Some give up because rates of pay for classical artists in many places is not high.

The main reason for all of this: supply of classical musicians vastly exceeds demand. On the supply side, music schools, universities and conservatories worldwide are graduating thousands of performers of classical music every year. On the demand side, you can count the number of classical music professional orchestras in most countries in the low single digits; the reality is that the market for classical music concerts is much smaller than the market for popular music concerts.

However, what this means for the future of open-licensed freely downloadable recordings of classical music is less clear. There is no shortage of brilliant musicians already employed full-time in other paying jobs like music teaching who might consider getting together with others to perform classical works under some sort of open licence, like one of the Creative Commons licences . I suspect that as more people become aware of the open-licensing phenomenon in other media, more classical music performers will help create a similar bandwagon for classical music recordings.

Re:Torrent with all the symphonies

[Anonymous Coward]

sorry that's more than its worth.

Symphonies 1, 2, 3, 4 & 5?

[antdude]

Does anyone have mirrors of BBC's files on the Internet? They are no longer available since this story is a little late. :)

Aside: Heritage of CDs

[tezza]

The rumour has it that Beethovens Ninth was a factor for the 74 minute length of a CD. It's a nice theory.

I think a better factor was that the disc diameter had to be able to fit within 5 1/4 inch disc drive bays, and then that manufacturing technology at the time only permitted a certain spiral density.

Still having a musical heuristic to validate its use as a musical storage format is a good idea.

Re:Aside: Heritage of CDs

[Anonymous Coward]

along with diameter and spiral density,
the sample rate (44.1 khz) can be chosen.

supposedly, the sample rate was set to 44.1 to
make Beethoven's ninth fit into one cd

Re:Aside: Heritage of CDs

[m50d]

No, 44.1 was an existing standard sample rate. It was chosen to fit VHS videotape from a time when that was used instead of DAT.

Re:Aside: Heritage of CDs

[Mwongozi]

In fact the length of an audio CD is related to the length of a video tape.

The sampling rate of 44.1 kHz is inherited from a method of converting digital audio into an analog video signal for storage on video tape, which was the most affordable way to store it at the time the CD specification was being developed. A device that turns an analog audio signal into PCM audio, which in turn is changed into an analog video signal is called a PCM adaptor. This technology could store 6 samples (3 samples per each stereo channel) in a single horizontal line. A standard NTSC video signal has 245 usable lines per field, and 59.94 fields a second, which works out at 44,056 samples/second. Similarly PAL has 294 lines and 50 fields, which gives 44,100 samples/second. This system could either store 14-bit samples with some error correction, or 16-bit samples with almost no error correction. There was a long debate over whether to use 14 or 16 bit samples and/or 44.056 k or 44.1 k samples/s when the Sony/Philips taskforce designed the compact disc; 16 bits and 44.1 k samples/s prevailed. The Sony PCM-1610 and PCM-1630 are well-known examples of PCM-adaptors used in conjunction with the Sony U-Matic VCR.

From

Re:Aside: Heritage of CDs

[ytm]

No, the sample rate was set to 44.1 kHz because most humans can hear sounds in about 20-22000 Hz range. To reproduce the wave accurately you have to double sampling rate, thus 44.1 kHz.

Re:Aside: Heritage of CDs

[Jeremy Erwin]

No, 44.1 was an existing standard sample rate. It was chosen to fit VHS videotape from a time when that was used instead of DAT.

Not exactly. The first commercially available PCM recorders were based on the U-matic mechanism.

Sony tried to recommend against using the VHS mechanism, but it turns out that the required bandwidth (1.4 MHz) is well within the capabilities of the otherwise deficient VHS (3 MHz).

The earliest digital recordings were often inferior in quality to the "backup" analog tapes, and some reissues of recordings from this period are mastered from these backups,

Re:Aside: Heritage of CDs

[mrklin]

Correct. And in a pinch, one's hi-fi VCR can double as a CD-quality recording device as it will record uncompressed PCM audi (not exactly as good as CD due to the fact that an analog tape medium will have some problems inherent with the medium i.e. wow & flutter, jitter, etc)

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

BBC downloads

[Anonymous Coward]

Be warned, the servers are initially overloaded.
I just got 5 K/sec. When i downloaded the older files some days after the initial offer i got 50K/sec and more.

Moderate Parent +Interesting

[Anonymous Coward]

The parent has asked a very interesting, relevant question but it is still languishing at score 1. Can a moderator boost its visibility a bit?

A global bandwidth drain!

[GLevangelist]

Maybe we should make all those filthy foreigners pay the license fee as well! What what?

Re:A global bandwidth drain!

[mean pun]

Maybe we should make all those filthy foreigners pay the license fee as well! What what?

If it would really help the Beeb, this dirty foreigner would happily pay the fee.

Re:I've always wondered why there isn't more of th

[SkunkPussy]

The originality is in the performance - for example at what tempo is the piece conducted? how does the conductor play with the dynamics? etc.

One performers wrong note could constitute originality!!

Re:I've always wondered why there isn't more of th

[Black Parrot]

> Free classical music downloads.

Just think: our favorite pop hits might be available 200 years from now, too.

Slashdotted!

[MarkByers]

Well I got the first one, but midway through the second download, it has slowed down to a crawl.

Wouldn't this be a perfect use of BitTorrents? Is there some good reason why they are not using BitTorrents or are they just unaware of the technology?

Re:Slashdotted!

[Anonymous Coward]

The BBC are very aware of BitTorrent and other P2P programs, multiple news articles on this suggests this.

Also, the BBC's IMP trial will apparently distribute TV using P2P, one can only speculate that the technology used will be similar to that of BitTorrent.

Re:Slashdotted!

[Detritus]

They may be more concerned about gathering accurate statistics on the number of files downloaded, files per user, etc.

Re:Slashdotted!

[Anonymous Coward]

A newsroom being aware of Bittorrent is not the same as management being aware of Bittorrent.

Re:Slashdotted!

[rokzy]

>Wouldn't this be a perfect use of BitTorrents? Is there some good reason why they are not using BitTorrents or are they just unaware of the technology?

no, it's probably because torrents are crap. it's now a few hours after this story, and there are zero people sharing.

even when torrent work perfectly the quality they provide is only equivalent to a 3rd rate webserver, not something a site as good as the BBC should settle for.

TRACKERLESS torrent

[talornin]

Went ahead and made a _trackerless_ torrent for those of you who want all the symphonies in this BBC series.

Grab the torrent here: http://home.no.net/nexus/beethoven_symphonies_trac kerless.torrent

Now, this is my first atempt at a trackerless torrent and you will need a client with trackerless support to use it (Newest Azureus and BitComet comes to mind)

Re:TRACKERLESS torrent

[Anonymous Coward]

Azureus 2.3.0.2 (latest, with dist db running) reports "Error: NullPointerException"

Re:TRACKERLESS torrent

[talornin]

Yeah, I know. It appears not to be working.

Register at gay-torrents.net and look in the non-pron section to find a regular torrent for the symphonies.

Re:TRACKERLESS torrent

[bagjuice]

also get null pointer exception

Re:TRACKERLESS torrent

[Reaperducer]

Register at gay-torrents.net and look in the non-pron section to find a regular torrent for the symphonies.

Ummm... no. Thanks. I'd rather not wade through gay porn to get free music.

Another warning to audiophiles

[Anonymous Coward]

If the cable conecting you to your ISP isn't thick enough and does not have gold plated connectors it will sound even worse!

Re:Another warning to audiophiles

[Decimal Dave]

The music sounds great for me. Probably because I'm using a $3000 Monster cat5 cable to connect to the internet, through a JPS Labs broadband router, drawing power from an Audio Magic Clairvoyant AC Adapter.

Re:Another warning to audiophiles

[SoupIsGoodFood_42]

You did de-ionize the gold plated connections before plugging it all in, right?

I'd also remove any metal-framed paintings on the wall, as this will cause interference to the bit-rate preprocessor.

Re:Another warning to audiophiles

[julesh]

If you're going to record it onto CD, make sure you get one labelled as "audio". The ones for data just don't sound as good.

This is fun!

talk, talk, talk

[falkryn]

I'm listening to the sixth now. Sounds pretty good so far. However, why did the BBC have to mar it by a talking bit at the start. Not complaining too much, it is a free download, but still, it will be distracting in my music library to have that hear it every time I play the song if I decide to keep it.

Re:talk, talk, talk

[Anonymous Coward]

MP3DirectCut to the rescue!

Re:talk, talk, talk

[cyberfunk2]

If you use iTunes, you can set the settings for that particular song (right click/ control click on the song, "get info", then go to options and set "start time" such that it skips the talking).

Re:talk, talk, talk

[taylork]

You could use mp3splt:
http://mp3wrap.sourceforge.net/

Re:talk, talk, talk

[falkryn]

Actually I do. Thanks for the tip.

Re:I've always wondered why there isn't more of th

[Anonymous Coward]

the reality is that the market for classical music concerts is much smaller than the market for popular music concerts

Or... the market for unpopular music concerts is much smaller than the market for popular music concerts

Re:Torrent with all the symphonies

[william_w_bush]

... DUDE!!!

no seriously,
DUDE!!!!!!!!!!!

Re:Torrent with all the symphonies

[kamukwam]

For those of you bold enough to leave the computer screen for a while, there probably is a local CD store near you where you can buy the whole set of beethoven symphonies.

Re:I've always wondered why there isn't more of th

[FeatureBug]

"You have to hire the music, which includes a fee payable to the estate of the composer in most cases. "

Given that most classical music was written by composers who have been dead for much longer than 90 years, there is no fee payable to the estate of the composer in most cases because the copyright of the composer has expired. Copyright should expire after a fixed period of time according to the US Constitution:

[Copyright is] "To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries."

Whether that is what is actually happening in practice is the responsibility of the legislators.

You're making my head explode

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't feel offended, but that has to be the most uber-n00b question I have seen in a long time. A similar computer question might be "where is the 'Any' key?"

fwiw, sonatas are generally works for a single instrument, traditionally in three movements. The famous "Moonlight" sonata is Beethoven's fourteenth piano sonata. Also, the "tune" commonly known as the "Moonlight Sonata" is just the first movement of the work.

Re:I've always wondered why there isn't more of th

[FeatureBug]

If you don't like classical music, that's fine but there's no need to be such a troll about it.

Re:Torrent with all the symphonies

[Anonymous Coward]

there probably is a local CD store near you where you can buy the whole set of beethoven symphonies.

Buy CD's? With real money? You're joking, right? People still do that?

Prefixed natter

[baadger]

It's a shame theres so much bloody blabbering pre-fixing the actual music though. They seem to be recorded straight off air.

Still, cynics aside it's still jolly nice of the BBC :)

Re:Prefixed natter

[Anonymous Coward]

Any standard mp3 player (e.g. iTunes) will allow you to set start and stop points, so you can have the complete file and still not have to deal with talking at the beginning or end.

Alternatively, you can just open the file in a sound editor (e.g. Audacity) and cut down the file :)

Personally, I like the talking - gives it that broadcast feel :)

Re:Prefixed natter

[Creepy Crawler]

This is what NPR does: gives background of the piece at hand and the ideas by the author why it was done "X way".

I personally like to know why certain songs done by the same author have soo dramatically different sound. Many times, a life-changing event (say a death of a wife or kid) will make a change of style.

24 hours of symphony 9

[kamukwam]

For those of you who can't have enough of Beethoven, or are just slow in listening to music, there is a 24 hour version of the 9th symphony.

It can be found here.

Only problem..

[Anonymous Coward]

There are many problems with BBC's hastily mounted campaigns. The one that's the most blatant, and the one that I will limit my discussion to, is related to its overt support of communism. Here's a quick review: Many people who follow BBC's hariolations have come to the erroneous conclusion that sin is good for the soul. The stark truth of the matter is that what I wrote just a moment ago is not the paranoid rambling of a yellow-bellied wacko. It's a fact. There is an unpleasant fact, painful to the tender-minded, that one can deduce from the laws of nature. This fact is also conclusively established by direct observation. It is a fact so obvious that rational people have always known it and no one doubted it until BBC and its lackeys started trying to deny it. The fact to which I am referring states that if the only way to put to rest nerdy and misguided magic-bullet explanations such as BBC's is for me to have a nervous breakdown, then so be it. It would really be worth it, because its most manipulative tactic is to fabricate a phony war between wily hucksters and silly, obtuse spivs. This way, BBC can subjugate both groups into helping it demonize my family and friends. I unmistakably don't want that to happen, which is why I'm telling you that we must reach out to people with the message that much of BBC's success is due to the rest of us bending over backwards to assist it and to overlook its failings.

We must alert people of that. We must educate them. We must inspire them. And we must encourage them to keep our priorities in check. BBC's goal is to bathe in splendor while the rest of us go to work in the mines, but given the way things are these days, we must remember that the baneful nature of BBC's pleas is not just a rumor. It is a fact to which I can testify. What I had wanted for this letter was to write an analysis of BBC's plaints. Not an exhortation or a shrill denunciation, but an analysis. I hope I have succeeded at that.

Re:Only problem..

[rsynnott]

In communist Britian, BBC watches you ;)

Re:Only problem..

[Anonymous Coward]

You forgot to sign that:

"PS: I am not a nut".

That's a very important line - otherwise readers might not be certain.

Another test question

[kamukwam]

"During the first part, the first 5 symphonies were offered, and over 650,000 people downloaded them."

I wonder how many of the 650,000 people actually removed the mp3's after 7 days of full enjoyment...

Re:Another test question

[aslate]

"The BBC grants you a 7-day, non-exclusive licence to download this Beethoven Experience audio."

Note the use of "download" and not "store", "use" etc...

Re:Another test question

[TheRaven64]

I can't see anything that says you have to delete it after 7 days. They grant you a license to download if for 7 days, but there are no limitations on how long you may retain a downloaded copy - unless you attempt to redistribute it, of course.

Re:I've always wondered why there isn't more of th

[FeatureBug]

As a general rule, if you're a professional classical musician, you can't afford to give away your work for free -- not to mention the costs of renting a recording studio which can fit an entire symphony orchestra. If you're an amateur classical musician (defined as "has a full time job which isn't music"), then unless you're really exceptional, you're not good enough to make recordings which people will want to listen to.

As a general rule, if you're a professional software engineer, you can't afford to give away your work as free software -- not to mention the costs of renting broadband internet connections for periods of months to years so that an entire group of software engineers can collaborate effectively on a large open-source project. If you're an amateur software engineer (defined as "has a full time job which isn't in software"), then unless you're really exceptional, you're not good enough to make software which people will want to use.

Yeah, it's a bit annoying, but you can just edit.

[Ritz_Just_Ritz]

I know...I know...they say you can't edit it. But if you're only going to be listening in the snuggly comfort of your own home, who will know/care? Any audio editing program will allow you to chop the commentary with ease. Unfortunately, it's only a 128k encode. Fine for casual use, but the audio quality isn't that great. I'm sure they had little choice because of bandwidth issues. Oh well. The 9th recording sounds pretty good. Cheers,

Wow, I'm going to hunt for the real thing now

[Anonymous Coward]

Thank you BBC! This makes me a lot happier about the TV license (tax)!

Now sharing this type music is a great thing, a perfect introduction for people like me (die hard ACDC fan).

I think I will reward you by purchasing the real CDs. Then (of course) encoding them in ogg for listenting to on (only) my PC.

Thank you!

Re:I've always wondered why there isn't more of th

[Clover_Kicker]

As I understand it, nobody plays the original Beethovan|Bach|whoever scores, because modern instruments don't sound the same as the ones he composed for.

Everyone plays modern arrangements of the classical pieces, which someone does have a valid copywright to.

Theoretically some gifted fellow could sit down with the original score, re-orchastrate it, and release that arrangement with a friendly license.

Re:I've always wondered why there isn't more of th

[FeatureBug]

The point I was making to followup what the other poster said is that, for most classical works, no fee is payable to the estate of the composer. You are right that there may be a fee payable to the owner of the copyright of the score. However, it has not always been the case. There was a recent, highly controversial decision in a court case in the UK on this very subject: Hyperion Records fails at appeal.

Re:I've always wondered why there isn't more of th

[Uber Banker]

Most of the fees you mentioned are included in a live performance. Hence, the only additional cost is mixing and polishing in the recording studio, if the BBC are going to broadcast, they've done all of this aswell.

Re:What about sound quality of classical downloads

[TheRaven64]

I just downloaded them and the sound quality is very poor. 128kbps CBR MP3 is really not adequate for classical music (and it sounds like it wasn't a particularly good digital master either). In contrast, 128kbps AAC from iTMS is significantly better. I generally encode CDs at 256kbps AAC, since the Dolby consumer AAC encoder is not nearly as good as the Pro version (same bitstream format, slightly tweaked psycho-acoustic model).

Statistics

[MarkByers]

They may be more concerned about gathering accurate statistics on the number of files downloaded, files per user, etc.

As far as I am aware (I am no expert on the BitTorrent protocol, so please correct me if I am wrong), the BitTorrent tracker collects these statistics already.

Re:Statistics

[Creepy Crawler]

Most clients do... Except Azureus. They were one of the first for trackerless-torrents, so they dont always report to the master server for stats.

Re:Statistics

[takeya]

I believe you can create torrents that will only collect user data from the tracker.

Though it's possible, I doubt the BBC wants to put up a tracker that BLOCKS Azureus (and the regular client, which is also decentralized, iirc)

A SciFi Quote:

[Anonymous Coward]

"My Grandfather was old enough to remember when they closed the last of the Libraries, back in the 20's when the Corpo-Government went full digital. It wasn't long until the editing started, he said.
He had saved a few, of the things they called books, hidden in a chest under the flooring in the basement. Tell no one of this.
These are the stories that they hold, quite different from what you have learned from the knowlege-cytes..."

Re:What about sound quality of classical downloads

[Gothmolly]

Why the Apple troll ?

Check the bargain bins

[jesterzog]

Free classical music downloads. Sure, the recording of the performance is still copyrighted, but aren't there any "free classical performers" out there?

It probably takes a bit more coordination than the average popular music performer to make a good classical recording -- at least one that requires any significantly sized orchestra. (Conductors, venues, recording equipment, lots of performers, practicing performing together cohesively, etc etc.) I suspect that most orchestras able to pull it off simply have to be professional, because there's so much rolling infrastructure involving a lot of people and resources behind the performances that's needed to make sure that they can do it properly. Arts funding to keep these things going is never very generous, and a lot of it probably comes on the condition that the orchestra management demonstrates that it's continuing to raise money on their own by charging for what it produces.

If it helps, you might find a lot of very cheap classical CD's in certain bargain bins. I've collected a lot of Mozart, Strauss and Dvorak for about $2 per CD, which is a price I'm perfectly prepared to pay and one that I think is quite fair. In my experience, they're often left-over stock of classical performances from some years ago, but they're not low quality.

Someone who cares about details such as particular orchestras or performances might not find what they want in the bargain bins. If you're like me, however, and just wanted a general introduction before finding out more, there's a lot of very cheap classical music out there.

Slashdotted?

[Amata]

(nt)

Re:Slashdotted?

[Neop2Lemus]

please, what does nt or n/t mean?

Re:Slashdotted?

[Anonymous Coward]

NT --> No Text
NM --> No Message

Re:I've always wondered why there isn't more of th

[drsquare]

Speaking of world records (see the article yesterday about memorising digits of ), here we have the world's worst analogy.

comparison of lossless audio compressors, FLAC

[free2]

but shn is not free for commercial use

according to http://members.home.nl/w.speek/comparison.htm
the fully free software FLAC seems to perform about as well

Warning: shameless plug

[spuzzzzzzz]

A quick biography of my brother, Edward Neeman:

For the past six years, I have been living and studying in Canberra, Australia with Larry Sitsky. During this period, I have won many prizes, including the Kawai Australasian Youth Piano Concerto Competition (2002) and the Paul Landa Memorial Scholarship (2004). I have performed as a soloist with the Sydney, Melbourne, Queensland and Western Australia Symphony Orchestras, and my concerts have been broadcast on local and national radio stations. I was invited to perform in the Sydney Spring International Festival of New Music in 2000 and 2001, and the Canberra International Chamber Music Festival in 2003 and 2004. I have also participated in international competitions and masterclasses, including the Tel-Hai International Piano Masterclasses, Israel (2001), the Queen Elisabeth International Piano Competition in Brussels (2003), the Young Concert Artists auditions in New York (2004), the Scottish International Piano Competition in Glasgow (2004), and the Panama International Piano Competition in Panama City (2004). From 2000-2005 I have been completing a Bachelor of Music degree at the Australian National University, where I have won the Erika Haas Performance Prize (2000), the Margeret Smiles Accompaniment Prize (2002) and the Winifred Burston Memorial Scholarship (2001, 2002).

Small download samples are available here and here. If there is enough interest, I can set up torrents of a bunch more stuff. Mostly modern (20th century), CC (no derivatives, attribution) license.

Re:Warning: shameless plug

[FeatureBug]

He seems to be a very fine young pianist. Why don't you put up more samples, and persuade him to do at least one or two 18th and 19th century works? I think it would also be a good idea to put up a proper webpage describing each recording, e.g. giving recording date(s)/venue name/piano-name(Steinway D,Yamaha C7,etc) and programme notes.

Re:Warning: shameless plug

[Neop2Lemus]

Yes, I'm interested as well please.

Re:Warning: shameless plug

[spuzzzzzzz]

Setting up a website is cheap and easy unless you want lots of disk space or a high bandwidth allowance, both of which we would need in order to distribute music on a reasonable scale. Torrents would be great except that you need some sort of critical mass to get them going. I've made a torrent of Beethoven's Appassionata Sonata here that I'm tracking/seeding from home; hopefully that will sort of work.

I suppose the way to go would be to set up a cheaply-hosted site with a bunch of torrent downloads and hope that we get enough traffic to make the torrents reasonably fast. If my free hosting providers fix their MySQL server, I might give that ago.

It's funny...

[rincebrain]

...because the license on the MP3s says it's illegal to redistribute them.

Not that that's stopping me from using that torrent, of course. Some licenses are just stupid.

hum tough decision....

[indy_Muad'Dib]

download off kazaa at 600kB/s or download legally from the BBC at 4kB/s....

Re:hum tough decision....

[jasoncart]

Hum... get a better ISP. I'm saturating an 8mbit pipe with the download in the UK, and a 40mbit connection in the US.

Re:hum tough decision....

[Conan D. Librarian]

Only 5k/sec here in the US as well. And I am the ISP.

Re:hum tough decision....

[Petronius]

only getting 5k/sec., on a pipe that usually clocks >600k/s

Re:hum tough decision....

[cyberfunk2]

I copy those slow speeds in the US.. i'm getting 4.4 on a pipe that I regularly pull 400k+/sec from.

Re:I've always wondered why there isn't more of th

[rbarreira]

The cost of a broadband connection is about the same as the cost of renting a recording studio? Which planet do you live on, I want to live there too! Or maybe not...

Plus, did you know that it takes much harder work to become a good musician than to become a good software engineer?

Re:What about sound quality of classical downloads

[TheRaven64]

Not an Apple troll. I've been using AAC for a couple of years longer than Apple...

For encoding classical music, AAC is far better than the alternatives. Ogg Vorbis is close, but last time I checked had some issues with harpsichords (not sure if they're fixed now, but encoding, say, a Brandenbug Concerto would result in some quite unpleasant distortions).

If you have a license for the Dolby Pro codec, then you will find it's quality to be superb. If not, the only source of music encoded with it that I know of is iTMS. The PsyTEL AAC encoder is also very good (close to the Dolby Pro encoder, passing it in some areas), but the last time I looked it was Windows-only - although it's a command-line app so it probably runs fine with WINE.

Re:I've always wondered why there isn't more of th

[Soul-Burn666]

No where in his post did he say he doesn't like classical music, or stated something other than facts.

Popular music has a large market. Regardless if popular music is any better or worse than unpopular music (usually worse).

He just said it's understandable that unpopular music has smaller markets, by definition of popularity :-P

I know the music I listen to has a relatively TINY market, yet it's quality material, at least in my eyes.

OK, learn more?

[Anonymous Coward]

Can you recommend a place to learn about classical music? At the beginner level. I listen but don't know anything else?

(yes I could do my own searching but a recommendation has a greater weight to me)

Re:OK, learn more?

[drakken33]

It depends on what you want to know. In my opinion if you've found pieces you like you don't really need to know much else. For me it's all about the music, whether I enjoy it and how it makes me feel.

Any extra info you need about a composer or piece as a "beginner" is usually pretty easy to find on Wikipedia and via Google.

Re:OK, learn more?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, welcome to the classical world, then :-)

Start with Beethoven's Fifth, there was a hint here how to get it. Or just buy a nice sampler in your store and go with your taste.

The most respected artists by the masses are Monteverdi, Vivaldi, JS Bach, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin and Tchaikovski, but it's all about your taste. Try and if you like, try some more.

Check the WP for some background info.

Cheers!

Re:OK, learn more?

[Anonymous Coward]

Beethoven is a good place to start, because even if you don't have any musical inclination, his work will quickly become familiar to you. It's literally as recognizable as Nine Inch Nails -- just as you know when you hear some synth work by Reznor, even if you've never heard it before, you'll also know when you hear something by the lovely Ludwig Van.

Mozart is the same way for a lot of people. But ultimately, sticking with the old dead German guys is like learning about rock and roll and stopping with the Stones and the Beatles. Try some Faure on for size, too -- "Pavane" is almost as recognizable as Beethoven's Fifth, and there are a lot of Faure discs that include it and some other very good stuff.

The Wikipedia suggestion is a good one.

Re:OK, learn more?

[zeroduck]

I know this is probably the wrong time in your life to do this... but for the ... very young ... Play a string instrument in school. Any good conductor/teacher will choose music that isn't what the masses have already heard 1000 times. Along with finding new music and composers, you'll learn about music theory, and be able to understand how it all works. Here's the best part: women love guys who play the violin. (Yeah, I made that up). But for parents: get your kids into playing an instrument, because it provides a nice balance to more stressful school activities (sports, AP classes, general bulshit).

Re:OK, learn more?

[Anonymous Coward]

This might be more than you asked for, but here are some good pieces of music which some may consider "accessible". Many of these were instant hits with me on the first listen.

Bach's well-tempered clavier, book one. Kind of a "best hits" of Bach. :) Listen to all of the two-part inventions.
Liszt's hungarian rhapsodies. Nos. 2, 6, 12, 13, 15, 19 are fun.
Prokofiev's 5th piano concerto. Ten pieces, op. 12 (especially #7 and #8). Tocatta, op 11 is awesome.
Rachmaninoff's c# minor prelude. 2nd and 3rd piano concertos. Definitely listen to etudes tableaux, especially the d-minor etude from op.33 and op.39 no. 6.
Chopin piano etudes. Get them all. Op. 10 nos. 1-4 are pretty good to start with. Op. 25 no. 5 too. Listen to all of the ballades.
Some Scarlatti sonatas are real gems, like K27 and K141.
Beethoven's piano sonatas #8 and #23 are good starters. #14 is the moonlight sonata. You've no doubt heard the first movement a thousand times. His 7th symphony is great.
Schumann's kinderszenen.
Mussorgsky's pictures at an exhibition, either original piano or a later orchestration. The promenade has one of the great russian melodies, instantly recognizable.

Take up an instrument in your free time. I took up piano, which is why most of what I listed is piano music. You will no doubt naturally look for more music on your own and learn a shitload of music history and appreciation from a music teacher. Go to the library for borrowing music CDs and getting music history/appreciation/theory books.

You'll find the more you listen to such music, the less it sounds the same. Individual pieces by any of these composers will sound as different from eachother as anything else.

Re:OK, learn more?

[Derwen]

Can you recommend a place to learn about classical music? At the beginner level. I listen but don't know anything else?

Thirty years ago it was easy: the first Vienese school (the three "great" classical composers - Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven), plus a little Schubert, followed by the romantic repotoire of Schumann, Brahms and Tchaikovsky.

Nowadays Classical music embraces an amazing soundworld of medieval vocal and instrumental music, right through to very accessible contemporary composers like Tavener, via more music than we have space hear to discuss. It makes it harder to get started, but means there are more rewards for the adventurous.

How to get started? Read books of reviews, or buy magazines, and use them as a guide. Then buy one or two records that are similar to what you know you like to each one you buy that is totally new. Some new ones you'll hate, some you'll love, but you'l know more about what you like :-)

Random recommendations? Klemperer's recording of Mahler's second symphony, Mitsuko Uchida's Mozart Piano Sonatas, download the BBC Beethoven symphonies, try some Tudor music - not just Thomas Tallis, start with Tye.

Re:OK, learn more?

[jhylkema]

Bach's well-tempered clavier, book one. Kind of a "best hits" of Bach. :) Listen to all of the two-part inventions.

Recommended recordings:

Well-tempered clavier Book I.

Well-tempered clavier Book II.

Re:OK, learn more?

[mink]

One thing to do is find some music you like and go to a live performance of it. Being in a theater and having the orchestra there is a totally different experience.

I once was able to attend a performance of the 9th (Beethoven) and Carmina Burana (Carl Orff) performed by the Wheeling Symphony Orchestra (W.VA. USA.) and there is a quality to the live performance. A resonance that you can feel in the air that no CD or DVD-A has been able to reproduce. Words fail me to describe the feeling enough to do justice to the experience.

Old non-CR music scores are quite playable!

[waterbear]

As I understand it, nobody plays the original Beethovan|Bach|whoever scores, because modern instruments don't sound the same as the ones he composed for.

Everyone plays modern arrangements of the classical pieces, which someone does have a valid copywright to.

Not quite correct. First, the issue of how modern instruments sound: this doesn't in itself affect the scores. Changes of sound quality apart, the players can still play all the notes (technique permitting), and regularly do -- or try to! (I was recently playing from a photocopy of an 18th-century printed part, the printing style looked a bit weird in places, but it is quite playable.)

Second, 'the original' identical scores may sometimes not be obtainable, ok, but there are still plenty of early-enough editions around that copyright should not be an issue. (Although, to look at recent publishers' facsimile reprints of 19th-century scores of 18/19th century music, you might pick up an impression that the publishers want you to believe there is still a copyright in force there!).

None of this denies that a new arrangement can have a valid copyright (but there are lots of questions just what is covered by the copyright in a new edition that has only minor changes relative to the out-of-copyright original).

-wb-

Re:Old non-CR music scores are quite playable!

[Clover_Kicker]

Cool, glad to talk to an actual musician about this.

I thought that almost any orchestra performance ends up paying royalties to someone, is that an exaggeration?

Re:Old non-CR music scores are quite playable!

[waterbear]

I thought that almost any orchestra performance ends up paying royalties to someone, is that an exaggeration?

I find that hard to call. In the UK, dues/royalty to the Performing Rights Society are calculated on a per-concert basis, according to the tariffs I've seen. There is a performer's habit of mixing old and new in many concert programmes, which means that if there is even just one short newer work in a programme that is mostly made up of out-of-copyright stuff, then the concert as a whole is in for a royalty payment. (I don't know what it is that legally entitles the licensing scheme people to construct their tariff like this, because the design of it seems to mean that a lot of money is in effect collected as royalty on out-of-copyright works.)

Then again at the old end of the musical timescale, current interest is reviving really old works that need editing and perhaps reconstruction as much as transcription to be playable, and for that the editors can now claim copyright much as if they were the composers.

So the copyright-free zone is practically limited at both ends of the time spectrum -- and maybe it's getting squeezed from both ends too.

-wb-

Thank goodness- I might have downloaded it

[gadlaw]

Thank goodness I've got some Slashdot Anonymous Coward to tell me that Beethoven is crap. We all anxiously await your Symphonic efforts.

Re:I've always wondered why there isn't more of th

[RWerp]

It's sad how many of your assertions are false.

Re:I've always wondered why there isn't more of th

[RWerp]

Sure. After all, we all know Ckwop would conduct Beethoven's 5th as well as Toscanini, don't we?

That works so well in Japan!

[interactive_civilian]

so says Jazzman(with a partial quote from me):

If anyone knows any places to legally download performances of other classics, please post them.
http://www.itunes.com/

Umm...yeah, because the iTMS works so well for me since I live in Japan.

Regarding paying for music, I have no problems with that, except I do enjoy listening to something before I buy it. Also, 5 dollar bargains mean nothing to me as I get paid in yen.

So, to summarize:
1.) I don't want to buy music if I have no idea what it sounds like first, and
2.) Not everyone lives in the US.

Re:That works so well in Japan!

[3riol]

Well, the iTunes Music Store Japan should open by year's end, according to Apple (who tirelessly rebuff the Nihon Keizai Shinbun's claims of it being set to open earlier).

However, the iTMS is blatantly designed around post-1960s recorded popular music. The Album-Artist-Title paradigm and 30-second previews are meaningless for much else. The "what it sounds like first" side isn't really catered for concerning jazz, classical (European and non-European), or even new-age music, where you get a random 30-s bit, sometimes mostly silence, of a fifteen-minute track. That, and the fact that anything not recorded in English seems to go straight to the "World Music" genre category.

Re:That works so well in Japan!

[jazzman251]

Umm...yeah, because the iTMS works so well for me since I live in Japan.

Regarding paying for music, I have no problems with that, except I do enjoy listening to something before I buy it. Also, 5 dollar bargains mean nothing to me as I get paid in yen.

I aplologize for posting that itunes comment, but how am I supposed to know where you live. It would've been helpful if you said, 'Since i live in japan, ...'. Anyway, I don't know about Japan, but most CD stores have listening booths so you can listen to your CD before you buy it. Aldo, $5 for Vienna Phil is a great deal. However, I do admit that getting all 9 by the BBC is a good deal too.

Re:I've always wondered why there isn't more of th

[Anonymous Coward]

Plus, did you know that it takes much harder work to become a good musician than to become a good software engineer?

I disagree. I think the difference between good and adequate is much more noticeable in classical music than in software engineering.Most people can recognize off key notes. But few people can recognize poorly designed software constructs. IMHO, most software is poorly built, because most software engineers are not more than adequate at their job. Almost all open source software has horrible end user design (if it has it at all, which a lot of pure tech projects don't). So, in a sense, the realities reflect what the OP was trying to say, that you get what you pay for.

15 Min Samples only

[Merlinhoot]

So it isn't the whole concert just 15 min samples. What a crock.

Re:15 Min Samples only

[talornin]

Um... no... they are all full featured symphonies... not samples.

Re:15 Min Samples only

[dajak]

Try the same links again. The first time I got 8-9 MB samples at slow speed. Second time I got the whole thing at 500 KB/sec. Maybe a ceative way of preventing being Slashdotted?

MOD PARENT DOWN - MAC OS X PIRACY

[Anonymous Coward]

Above post sanctions not just software piracy, but this time, ass piracy as well.

Re:I've always wondered why there isn't more of th

[UncleFluffy]

Plus, did you know that it takes much harder work to become a good musician than to become a good software engineer?

Maybe to become a good enough musician or software engineer, but I'd strongly disagree with your point as written - it's just less obvious to people outside of the field when a software engineer isn't very good.

The record companies

[Alioth]

It's interesting - although the BBC has the FULL RIGHTS to distribute this music as they see fit (including free), the record companies were STILL whining about it, and going on about "how it would destroy the record industry" etc. The record companies were on the BBC news at least twice whining about this.

This proves the truth - record companies just don't like competition.

Re:The record companies

[Anonymous Coward]

umm... something happen last night you need to get off your chest?

Re:I've always wondered why there isn't more of th

[damiam]

As I understand it, nobody plays the original Beethovan|Bach|whoever scores, because modern instruments don't sound the same as the ones he composed for.

Not true. By Beethoven's time (early 1800s), the modern symphony orchestra format was well established, and his compositions are played by modern symphonies in their original forms. Bach (early 1700s) didn't write any symphonies, because symphony orchestras didin't exist at the time. But he wrote a lot of choral pieces, a lot for organ/harpsichord, and much for solo string instruments and small string ensembles. Some of the instruments are now different - piano is more commonly used than harpsichord, for example, and modern string instruments have a few changes - but the music for the most part can be played unaltered.

Re:I've always wondered why there isn't more of th

[Anonymous Coward]

The only "orchestras" that play arrangements are orchestras that are full of children. And the arrangements simply serve the purpose of simplifying the music.

Everyone else plays the original.

Some people even play the original on original intruments.

Re:I've always wondered why there isn't more of th

[damiam]

You can get excellent recordings of small acoustic ensembles for $500-$1000 in recording equipment.

I already got Beethoven.

[KrisCowboy]

Can I have Bill Haley and His Comet's "Rock Around The Clock" plese? :-)

Re:I already got Beethoven.

[cpghost]

Well, hmmm... yes. But www.allofmp3.com has a nice collection of classic music too (besides other things).

Re:I already got Beethoven.

[Anonymous Coward]

www.grammy.ru

Re:I've always wondered why there isn't more of th

[damiam]

If these recordings aren't original, they'd all sound exactly the same, right? So why bother having hundreds of different recordings of the same Beethoven symphony, or the Bach solo violin sonatas? Because they don't all sound the same; each performer has their own sound and interpretation of the music. Classical recordings are very much original and very much copyrightable. If you don't believe me, look for the copyright notice on the back cover of any classical CD.

Re:I've always wondered why there isn't more of th

[hunterx11]

I don't mean to disrespect them in any way, nor am I complaining that they are overpaid; however, the starting salary for a 1st violinist in the Chicago Symphony Orchestra is over $100,000. There are far too many great musicians who are indeed trying to scrape a meager living, but members of prominent orchestras are not such people. Of course, as you said there are more costs than that to an recording, and it is of little surprise that there are not more distributed for free.

Audio is much smaller than video; therefore...

[tepples]

I've always wondered why MP3 and other audio formats are not encoded in two passes much like variable bitrate video encoding

Probably because audio is small enough that the difference between fitting eight albums on a CD-R and fitting nine albums on a CD-R isn't very wasteful, unlike DivX video where you try to fit the entire length of a feature film (or half of one) within a tight window of 695 to 700 MiB.

RMS error isn't everything

[tepples]

Root-mean-square error as a measure of fidelity works with processes that do not use a psychoacoustic model, but it does not take into account the various kinds of masking that the human ear uses and that codecs such as MP3 and Vorbis exploit. There is no known accurate measure of perceptual audio fidelity.

Re:RMS error isn't everything

[Frodo Crockett]

There is no known accurate measure of perceptual audio fidelity.

Of course there is! It's the amount of money you spend on power cables and RCA interconnects! ;)

Re:Torrent with all the symphonies

[bagjuice]

you bastards had me seraching the gay forums for about 30 minutes. I can't find any torrent anywhere.

Re:I've always wondered why there isn't more of th

[rsidd]

As I understand it, nobody plays the original Beethovan|Bach|whoever scores, because modern instruments don't sound the same as the ones he composed for.

As others have pointed out: not true. The sound of the instrument has nothing to do with the score.

What a score may do is point out appropriate fingering -- but unless it's a transcription to a totally different instrument (eg, piano to guitar), the notes are exactly as Beethoven wrote them. There's certainly a copyright on the score but it's rather hard to tell from a recording which score was used when the notes are the same, and I'd doubt that the publisher of the score is entitled to royalties from the recording anyway.

Do YOU like competition?

[mi]

This proves the truth - record companies just don't like competition.

What an insight! Do you like competition? Say, in a bar (pub)... How many handsome competitors of the same orientation do you want next to you?

Re:Do YOU like competition?

[Alioth]

Umm, actually - yes I do. Life would be pretty damned dull without it.

Re:Do YOU like competition?

[k8to]

Probably as many as possible, if he or she is gay. ;-)

Re:Do YOU like competition?

[f0rt0r]

Yep, there is nothing like the thrill of competition, beating your opponents with good timing and clever strategy without cheating gives the ultimate high. Not having any competition leaves you without any bragging rights. Think "Company X wins the award in this category again, beating...no one. But here is the trophy anyway."

Re:Do YOU like competition?

[Neop2Lemus]

The competition exists for the benefit of the women in the bar, not for us. Do you understand the analogy? (i.e. Consumers == chicks here).

Re:Do YOU like competition?

[mi]

The competition exists for the benefit of the women in the bar, not for us.

Why, yes, of course! But I still don't like it...

Re:Torrent with all the symphonies

[RPoet]

Wasn't that hard: here.

Awesome website! thanks

[cecirdr]

I'm intrigued by their business model...and happy that you led me to find them. I'll be supporting them, the music is very good.

Not easy to be 1st Chair Violinist...

[MsGeek]

The 1st Chair Violinist has a great deal of responsibility over and above being a hot violin soloist. S/He is usually the assistant conductor of the orchestra. S/He is the person who puts the orchestra through its rehearsals. S/He makes sure everyone has the right sheet music. S/He is basically the "second-in-command" of the orchestra.

All that, and they have to be a hot violin soloist too. It's really quite a set of responsibilities. No shit they get paid well.

Unfortunately the percussionists in the orchestra are the ones at the bottom of the totem pole. This was a fact of life that was quite depressing for my husband, who's a percussionist and was a member of the New Jersey Percussion Ensemble in the early part of the 1970s. Instead of classical, he took his chances on rock. ;-)

Re:Not easy to be 1st Chair Violinist...

[HuguesT]

The parent didn't say first chair violonist, he said first violonist, i.e. any of the 20-30 or so violonists who play the first violin part in any orchestral work.

Rest assured that the first chair violonist from one of the major orchestra in the world makes a whole lot more than this, and this is just the salary. Then there are guest works here and there, lessons, whatever.

from this link

Actually, the salary in major orchestras is quite high. The starting salary in San Francisco for example is $99,000 a year. In most of the major symphony orchestra, the starting salary is between about 90,000-95,000 to I think 115,000 for the Metropolitan Orchestra. The salary info is available through AFM, possibly even on their website. These salaries are for section jobs.

Re:Not easy to be 1st Chair Violinist...

[Neop2Lemus]

In engineering terms you are describing a Project Engineer. They get between 1/2 and 3/4's of that amount.

I don't mean to say that the 1st Violinist is overpaid, maybe that's what a great violinist is worth, but the rest of the stuff sounds like average managerial-level work.

Re:Not easy to be 1st Chair Violinist...

[jazzman251]

Unfortunately the percussionists in the orchestra are the ones at the bottom of the totem pole.

Here in the Colorado Symphony Orchestra, the principal timpanist is the 3rd highest paid person in the orchestra.

Re:Not easy to be 1st Chair Violinist...

[AltoClef]

That's interesting. Things are evidently different in New Jersey, but in Britain, percussionists are most definitely not at the bottom of the totem pole. In most orchestras there are three broad groups: section principals, assistant principals and tutti (rank and file).

Because there are very few percussionists in an orchestra (and hence they have rather exposed parts to play), they fall into one of the first two groups. The orchestra leader will be paid a large amount, for reasons expressed elsewhere, but many of the first violinists will probably earn less than the principal timpanist.

Re:Torrent with all the symphonies

[homerito]

Now you have the slashdot crowd registering in the gay-torrent website...

In the news july 4: Dramatic increase of worldwide gay comunity read more...

Good Recordings!

[FriedTurkey]

Only problem is the 2 minutes of talking before the music.

Re:Good Recordings!

[Anonymous Coward]

You can fix this in iTunes: Get info on the track -> Options -> Start at 2:00 - voilà :-)

ABR and CBR

[pikine]

Actually, the layer-3 standard, when fully implemented, allows the encoder to use left-over bits from previous frames or to borrow from next frames, so it is sort of like ABR. The chief technical difference is that, for CBR, all frames are marked the same bitrate despite bit borrowing, where as ABR marks each frame with the appropriate bitrate. Of course, with CBR, the actual frame boundary can drift very far away from frame markers. This means you shouldn't naively cut and concatenate MP3 files, but most decoders can deal with incomplete frames (by ignoring them).

You pasted the wrong part of the article

[Anonymous Coward]

You pasted the wrong part of the article. You meant to copy and pasted the paragraph below. Your reference to the sampling rate without track length shows that.

Here is the part you meant:

The main parameters of the CD (taken from the September 1983 issue of the compact disc specification) are as follows:

* Scanning velocity: 1.2-1.4 m/s (constant linear velocity).
* Track pitch: 1.6 m.
* Disc diameter 120 mm.
* Disc thickness: 1.2 mm.
* Inner radius program area: 25 mm.
* Outer radius program area: 58 mm.

We find that the program area equals 86.05 square cm, so that the length of the recordable spiral is 86.05/1.6 = 5.38 km. Given a scanning speed of 1.2 m/s, we note that the playing time is 74 minutes, or around 650 MB of data on a CD-ROM. In case the disc diameter would have been 115 mm, the maximum playing time would have been 68 minutes, i.e., 6 minutes less. A disc with data appearing slightly more densely is allowable. Using a linear velocity of 1.2 m/s and a track pitch of 1.5 micrometre leads to a playing time of 80 minutes, or a capacity of 700 MB. This is the limit for most conventional audio CDs today.

Re:Number kick -- snore .... Slashdotted ....

[WidescreenFreak]

At the current 4.1 KB /sec on a 4-6 MB/sec cable connection, it would probably be faster for me to go out, buy the CDs, and rip them! The Sixth Symphony will take over three hours to download at the current rate. :)

Ah, well. If it helps to give credibility to legal music downloading, I'll wait for the transfers.

A site gets slashdotted when it has nothing to do with geeks, gadgets, or gizmos. Who would have thought it?

Thank Goodness Slashdot didn't post this ealier

[Anonymous Coward]

The site was slow enough when it was being Fandotted (1.2 kB/sec) each time they put a new one there. Had it been Slashdotted - oy!

The sad thing is...

[Anonymous Coward]

Even if someday we discover a way to produce food for free and eliminate scarcity, the behavior of the MPAA & RIAA has taught me that someone will invent new "property" rights and argue that it's right for some portion of the world to starve rather than let their newly minted "rights" be infringed.

Given patents on food & animals, only time will tell just how far from the mark I end up...

It's sad to think that the only way we know to deal with an effective lack of scarcity is to artificially reintroduce it by law :(

I call BS

[Anonymous Coward]

No one who enjoys Mahler, Rachmaninoff, and Franck "can't stand" Beethoven. I also laugh at the idea of having "grown out" of enjoying Beethoven. It is possible that your tastes have changed over time, granted, but the idea that you have "outgrown" Beethoven is ROTFLOL-class silly.

(The rest of your post is perfectly sensible, and I agree with your choices of more modern composers).

Re:Torrent with all the symphonies

[arose]

What if there isn't one?

Re:I've always wondered why there isn't more of th

[FeatureBug]

No, not all. The analogy is extremely apt because it shows firstly that whether creative people can afford to publish their stuff under a free-redistribution type of copyright licence has nothing to do with whether they are musicians or software engineers, and secondly that being a non-professional does not automatically imply the person can make only lower-quality content.

MOD THIS COWARD UP!

[Mr.Progressive]

I hate the Bush administration as much as the next guy, but people need to realize that BOTH parties have been thoroughly pwned by Big Business. In these entertainment cases, the Democrats are the ones who deserve our ire.

Re:I've always wondered why there isn't more of th

[infolib]

Several gigs of free legal classical music

Ok, so it's mostly amateurs, but I definitely like some of it.

Re:I've always wondered why there isn't more of th

[Anonymous Coward]

You said:

> As I understand it, nobody plays the
> original"Beethovan|Bach|whoever scores,
> because modern instruments don't sound the
> same as the ones he composed for.

> Everyone plays modern arrangements of the
> classical pieces, which someone does have
> a valid copywright to."

This is completely false. There *are* modern arrangements, but there's no reason to play them on today's instruments as it's actually easier to play on today's instruments than those of 100, 200 and 300 years ago.

There have been some "touch up" arrangements released, but most of the Beethoven scores avaliable are those that which were only modified slightly by Beethoven's copyist.

As for the copyright, Beethoven and Bach's works are not copyrighted. Perhaps some of the publications are, but the works themselves are public domain.

Go read about what happened with Prokofiev's works recently.

Re:Number kick -- snore .... Slashdotted ....

[Palal]

That's why you get Download Accelerator or FlashGet.

Re:I've always wondered why there isn't more of th

[Given M. Sur]

Just think: our favorite pop hits might be available 200 years from now, too.

Except that most of today's music will not stand the test of time.

The classical music that is still around today is the best of the best, just as only the best of the best of today's music will still be listened to 200 years from now.

Re:Yeah, it's a bit annoying, but you can just edi

[cpghost]

Any audio editing program will allow you to chop the commentary with ease.

Any recommendations for Linux, FreeBSD, ...? I understand that MP3 files consist of frames, so chopping off the beginning (minus the header) won't be so difficult; but an audio editing program with GUI would be a nice thing to have.

Re:I've always wondered why there isn't more of th

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree with your point that generally classical music is much, much harder to play well than pop music. As an amateur pianist, I have played both, and the hard classical pieces are probably two or three orders of magnitude more difficult than "hard" pop keyboard work.

On the other hand, I disagree with your point that nobody worth listening to is giving music away. There is some nice amateur work out there. Ok, it's not quite up to the standards of E.Kissin, but it can still be quite enjoyable.

I'd also probably agree with you for orchestral recordings. But for smaller scale stuff, there is good amateur work available.

Re:I've always wondered why there isn't more of th

[johnpaul191]

often an orchestra is recorded in their home base, or one they travel to. a lot of purists feel the optimum way to record a piece of classical music is with an orchestra in a hall they know using one really really really good microphone (yes, mono). i am not trying to oversimplify it, but that is the way a lot of people like it. it also gives a unique sound, a lot of halls are well known for the sound they have, and it can take years for the orchestra, director etc to learn how to get the optimum sound for that space.

recording may not be as complicated as pop artists that can not actually sing in key and need 55 takes of a guitar solo, but it is a different beast.

also of note, the orchestra often will count on the revenue from those recordings to keep going.

Re:Yeah, it's a bit annoying, but you can just edi

[Anonymous Coward]

Audacity is most excellent. Do give it a look.

Re:I've always wondered why there isn't more of th

[drsquare]

Well obviously not, because in this case professional musicians can't afford to public their material freely, and the non-professionals can only produce lower-quality content.

Re:I've always wondered why there isn't more of th

[Anonymous Coward]

I know the music I listen to has a relatively TINY market, yet it's quality material, at least in my eyes.

You mean .. ears.

9 Beet Stretch

[kponto]

Here's a copy of Beethoven's 9th stretched out to 24 hours. The algorhythm used is superb, and the end result is amazing.

Re:I've always wondered why there isn't more of th

[spisska]

You're right that they record in the hall with one microphone, but not mono.

Generally an extremely high quality stereo condenser mic is used (usually hung from the ceiling around the middle of the hall), as it can replicate the spatial arrangement of the musicians on the stage without spreding them too far apart (you don't want the 1st violins only in the right speaker) as well as capturing the tonal characteristics of the hall itself.

The advantage of this is, of course, that it doesn't take much longer to produce a classical recording than it does to perform the piece. The microphone is designed to pick up and record exactly the sound in the room -- meaning there's very little processing that needs to be done afterwards.

Contrast this with pop music, where it can take weeks in the studio to get the right guitar sound (don't even get me started on what it takes for drums).

If you listen to new pop bands, they may have great sound, but it's not all that impressive considering how much time they spend tweaking things to get that sound.

What is impressive, are those old Elvis recordings with Carl Perkins and the Sun Studio house band, where they'd cut the whole record in a couple of days. That band still sounds tighter and swings harder than just about anything today.

Costs of recording classical music/making software

[FeatureBug]

You forgot to multiply the cost of one broadband connection by 100 people for 2 years in a software project (a symphony orchestra has up to 100 people), and to add to that the costs of 100 computer purchases' pro rata depreciation during those 2 years, 100 electricity users during evenings and weekends at 500Watts for a PC, plus 3kWatts more if there is room heating/air conditioning... Assuming the bandwidth for hosting the software project itself is free to the users (e.g. sourceforge), the PC room is effectively free and the PCs are used for the project for say 1/5 of the switched-on time, the total cost is still at least USD 20000. Let's compare that with the costs of producing a digital recording of one piece of classical music in a project that is intended to release the music for eventual free distribution, i.e. minimized costs -- no need to hire Carnegie Hall, no need for 5* hotels, etc. Did you know that classical music can be very satisfactorily performed and recorded in a large church (many of which have excellent acoustics) at a cost of USD300-500 for one evening's hire of the church using multi-track digital recording kit at a hire cost including amps, mikes, stands etc of USD600-1000, and a whole-day's hire of a recording engineer at USD500-1000? That's a total hire cost of around USD1400-2500 to produce a digital recording of one piece of classical music.

Re:I've always wondered why there isn't more of th

[FeatureBug]

No, you missed the point about copyright expiry: "their stuff" in the case of classical musicians is available for them to use at no cost because it is classical music which was owned, not by the performing musicians, but by the classical composers whose copyrights have mostly expired, and also the point I made earlier here about the availability of talent apart from professional performers.

Re:Number kick -- snore .... Slashdotted ....

[rmcii]

Hmm. Download Accelerator or FlashGet?

I thought this was slashdot. Use `wget`

Re Beethoven's fifth

[Alien54]

One interesting tidbit

The fifth sysmphony shows that Beethoven can have a sense of humor, even if it is on a gigantic scale.

The story is that there was a review of the Fourth Symphony (by Hoffman [if I recall correctly], same guy as in 'Tales of Hoffman') who complained that the melodies were way too long and unwieldly, thrashing about like tortured snakes.

So Beethoven poked him in the eye, so to speak, by baseing many of the themes of the first section of the Fifth Symphony on the shortest of motifs, the famous "Da Da Da Duuuuum".

Of course, he still built extended melodies from the motif, but now it was so clear that even this reviewer could understand it.

Re:I've always wondered why there isn't more of th

[jhylkema]

Theoretically, yes, but practically, people like to do things like eating, so they charge. A radical concept, that, and one seemingly lost on the FOSS zealots.

Period performance now more popular than ever

[mrklin]

Yes, I agree that the original score is largely playable by modern performers and modern instruments. However, performances using period instruments and pacing are now more popular than ever.

Witness with success of Sir John Eliot Gardiner and his Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique, Monteverdi Choir, and English Baroque Soloists. http://www.monteverdi.co.uk/ In fact, any classical music fans should be able to recall that his recording of the Beethoven Symphonies with Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique using period intruments was hailed as a landmark recording and won numerous prizes.

Beethoven as Philosopher

[Alien54]

In many cases, Beethoven IS modeling philosophical ideas in Music.

You really see this for the first time in the first movement of the Eroica, Symphony #3, but it is also evident in the Fifth, and is pretty obvious in the 9th. But being music, the ideas are more difficult to put into directly into words.

it is like abstract art that at first is non-comprehensible, until you spot the context that the piece was created from. An example from visual art can be seen here where a cool science fiction scene is created from a snapshot of some kitchen shelves.

Point being, there is another whole level going on there.

Bad Orchestras vs. Bad Recordings

[billstewart]

Sometimes the bargain-bin things are overstock, but sometimes they're the Cheap-Ass Commercial Orchestra putting together something they think they can sell as elevator-music. You're often better off with a low-bit-rate MP3 of a good orchestra with a good conductor (or a scratchy vinyl recording) than a great-quality reproduction of a lousy orchestra.

That doesn't mean that it isn't worth occasionally getting those recordings, especially for obscure composers or pieces that don't get recorded very often, but for major pieces it's going to make a lot of difference. On the other hand, university orchestras may be more interesting than most of the commercial orchestras, because they've got more flexibility to fool around.

Damn Slashdotters

[WoKKiee]

I've downloaded some of the first 5 symphonies at work at about 10kB/s, and at home at about 5 kB/s using my 56k modem. I was quite happy with those downloading speeds (I live in South Africa, the country with the most expensive internet access in the world).

After the Slashdotting I'm only getting 2.1 kB/s. Hopefully I'll be able to download the rest before they take it off. I want to keep it 100% legal, so therefore I'll only use the torrents as a last resort.

Hopefully the Beeb won't stop making music freely available for download because of the /. effect...

Best download speeds I've seen

[billstewart]

Oh, so it's *your* fault :-) Actually my downloads worked just fine - appeared to be filling my 1.5 Mbps in the US. You must not have saturated your 40 Mbit connection for very long - a 40 MB file would take 8 seconds if you could really go that fast.

In general, this is the best download performance I've seen - usually anything large that I'm downloading other than bittorrents will either saturate a small server with a small number of downloaders, or a large number of downloaders on a large pipe, but this just blazed away.

Re:Best download speeds I've seen

[jasoncart]

http://support.bbc.co.uk/support/network/ - BBC Network Diagram. Doesn't show the private peers, of which there are many.

Right back at ya!

[mrklin]

"Many classical forms have become pompous, whiny and annoying to modern ears. I, for example, can't stand any Vivaldi, Haendel, Beethoven. I've enjoyed them all, mind you, when I was younger, but I've grown out of it."

Like the classical forms that you despise, you are also quite pompous, whiny, and annoying. I have enjoyed childish comments like yours, especially when I was younger, but I've since grown out of it.

P.S. - By the way, I can't stand the self-aggrandizing, I am too important to express myself and thus cannot make anythng that sounds good modern classical music composers. Give me Mozart's sublime Le Nozze di Figaro anyday!

Re:I've always wondered why there isn't more of th

[DavemanDeluxe]

Coming from the knowledge of a music student and choral music librarian... It's true that the copyrights on a lot of old music have elapsed. However, a lot of sheet music for old music is still copyrighted because the publishers edited the score (adding performance notes, performance marks, dynamic marks, etc.). So those editions are under copyright even if the original music is not under copyright. However, you still have to pay for the printing of music that is not under copyright. I can usually tell if new copies of a work are still under copyright because the ones that aren't are dead cheap (under $1.00 per part, depending on the number of pages). Interestingly, there is a resource online (I can't remember the name or site) that collects old choral works which are no longer under copyright and makes them available for free download and printing. We've been seeing a lot of choirs use these resources, which is wonderful.

Re:Costs of recording classical music/making softw

[rbarreira]

Well, if you're going to such detail, maybe you should add in the costs of the musical instruments too, which are MUCH more expensive than the pc's. And yes, I'm more than aware that some churches have good acoustics for concerts, but for serious recordings with 100-piece orchestras I'm not so sure... Are you?

English lacks parenthesizing

[Anonymous Coward]

Only the "use" is excepted.

Here is the complete statement in logical form:

You may NOT {copy OR reproduce OR edit OR adapt OR alter OR republish OR post OR broadcast OR transmit OR make available to the public OR use} this audio in any way AND NOT for your own {personal AND non-commercial} use}}.

Re:Costs of recording classical music/making softw

[FeatureBug]

"maybe you should add in the costs of the musical instruments too, which are MUCH more expensive than the pc's."

It is true musical instruments are generally much more expensive than PCs but unlike PCs which depreciate quickly to almost zero over 3-5 years, it is not uncommon for a good-quality, musical instrument to last the whole of a musician's lifetime or longer.

"And yes, I'm more than aware that some churches have good acoustics for concerts, but for serious recordings with 100-piece orchestras I'm not so sure... Are you?"

Yes, absolutely - many professional classical recordings with symphony orchestras have been made in churches.

WOW-AU!

[Anonymous Coward]

so i'm using this firefox 1.0.4 sumething thingy
and finaly one of those huge music files is
downloaded and i fire up that windows media player
10 thing and listen to that #6 out in the country
"song" while watching the download bar crawl over
to the left side and ah-ha ... 5,4,3,2,1 "download
complete" and puff! that #9 just fires up in WMP10
overiding my listening to #6 and okay nevermind
just close that wmp10 and reopen #6 just to ...
discover ... what horror ... where's the #9 file?
it can't be .. it's gone! GONE! *sniff* oh well,
nevermind at least it's free and it lets-a-me
get back at my music teacher in high school who
complained about the hourly :SIG of my casio
watch, i mean .. classic music on a COMPUTER?
pffft! so here i go again .. right click that #9
file and download it again, only this time i'm
going to close wmp10 before the download complets
or it will eat it again ...

Re:Yeah, it's a bit annoying, but you can just edi

[f0rt0r]

I second this. When I need to edit/convert audio files, Audacity gets the job done in a jiffy. If you have a package manager like Synaptic, you can download and install Audicity like so: "apt-get -y install audacity"

Could it get any simpler?

Re:I've always wondered why there isn't more of th

[Brundylop]

Anyone heard of The Video Game Pianist? (aka Blindfolded Pianist) He basically is a college music student who plays video game music (Mario, Final Fantasy, Zelda, etc.) and posts them free on the internet. You've probably seen him on Ebaums playing mario songs blindfolded. The mission statements of his site.
Mission 1: "I am dedicated to promoting video game music as well as increasing the popularity of video game music."
Misson 2: "My second goal is to enhance the image of the piano and to make the piano a more mainstream instrument in today's music culture."
Mission 3: "My third goal is to popularize classical music by performing video game music."
And he's not half bad :)

Re:I've always wondered why there isn't more of th

[Anonymous Coward]

He was being sarcastic, slick :P

Resumable downloads

[Hal XP]

I'm a bit puzzled by your statement "The first time I got 8-9 MB samples at slow speed." The downloads appear to be resumable. So I'd simply abort the download when it slows to a crawl and resume, rather than restart, the download. Of course, resuming as against restarting a 40MB download probably doesn't make much of a difference for those on a 500K pipe. But it does matter for those on a 56K dialup line (a three-hour download).

Re:Resumable downloads

[dajak]

I'm a bit puzzled by your statement "The first time I got 8-9 MB samples at slow speed."

What I mean to say is that the first time I downloaded I literally received completely different files from the same links, being 15 minute samples of 8-9MB. Since others apparently received the whole thing, I decided to try again and was surprised to find that the links now pointed to other files.

Apparently they have some setup that allows a maximum of connections to the whole symphonies, and redirects excess connections to 15 min samples on a much narrower pipeline. It is really weird. Parent of this thread is not talking nonsense.

Re:I've always wondered why there isn't more of th

[Anonymous Coward]

You didn't understand the real meaning - it was a parody!

Most classical "music" is free

[Hal XP]

You have to hire the music, which includes a fee payable to the estate of the composer in most cases.

This isn't true in most cases, as most of the really good stuff has been written by composers who have long since passed to the Great Concert Hall in the Sky. If you want to be pedantic about it, all "classical" compositions (that is, music of the Classical period) are free. All you need to do is to find a computer or a performer to turn the printed notes into music. And so the big problem is really the performance.

As for recordings not being a cash cow for classical music artists, most of the top-tier artists make their living from giving black-tie concerts. But most artists of lesser talent or promotion have to content themselves giving music lessons, either tutoring young brats on how to do-re-mi or lecturing at the music college of some university. I should know: I was the pain of quite a few such frustrated concert performers, and I still can't read a piece of simple sheet music on first sight.

Re:Most classical "music" is free

[Neop2Lemus]

You and me too brother. How that piano teacher stood me I don't know.

Wish I could though but I'm more of an appreciate than create music kind of guy I guess (a hard admission to make).

Time offsets

[cyberfunk2]

These are the time offsets that you can set in iTunes or another player, to get past the talking parts for each of the symphonies to get only the music part to play in your playlist: (minutes:seconds)

1: 3:00
2: 2:12
3: 2:59
4: 1:19
5: 1:11
6: 2:16
7: 1:55
8: 3:11
9: 2:38

Re:Time offsets

[Buran]

That's a great timesaver, and appreciated. Does anyone have the times yet for the individual movements?

Re:I've always wondered why there isn't more of th

[Jack Taylor]

Beethoven and Bach didn't put any fingering in their scores, either, so you could just play their music on a different instrument anyway. If there is any fingering in these scores then it was added by the publisher. Composers writing fingering in scores only really started happening in the second half on the 19th century (think Chopin & Liszt) and then it was only for music that was so difficult that you probably couldn't play it on an instrument that wasn't the same sort of construction as the original. The same holds true today, as far as I have seen.

Re:What about sound quality of classical downloads

[Anonymous Coward]

It's the BBC. Making stuff up just kind of filters over from the news department.

Re:I've always wondered why there isn't more of th

[Neop2Lemus]

Short answer. No. But there should be.

Ancilliary note:
Free Mozartrecording I got off the bottome of the Wikipediapage on him.

Tell the BBC

[mattr]

Someone should tell the BBC about the way to use bittorrent. I'm getting 150-200 kilobytes/sec with 100 seeds and 24 peers. It seems someone gets a full copy every 10 seconds or so.. and it is 2:00 pm June 4 in Japan. That is, after downloading the four mp3s they had with wget and curl, I looked at the other two links in the thread, and though one was taken down the other link is fine. By trying to download via bittorrent at various times the BBC should be able to see the amount of demand from geeks with a minimum of ingenuity and how the swarm grows etc. It certainly would be cheaper for them if they just did that and released a torrent!

By the way I recently got a lot more interested in classical music from a manga called Nodame Cantalibre which is still growing at 12 issues (Japanese only so far). It is about classical music students and a fun and fascinating look at music school and the post graduation world for classical musicians. I'm looking for classical sheet music / lessons on the net for guitar (or piano perhaps).

Re:Tell the BBC

[julesh]

I don't think they need to. I'm saturating my link directly from the BBC's site.

Re:I've always wondered why there isn't more of th

[adamgolding]

sorry--can you give me a hint about Prokofiev's works? i have no idea what i would google to find what you're talking about...

Not legal in Canada

[Anonymous Coward]

These so-called 'legal music' downloads are not legal in Canada. The Canadian government has passed a law, forbidding the upload or download of music on the internet. It didn't specify whether sheet music was permitted or not, so one can assume that all music (up or down) is illegal. It doesn't matter that the copyright holder is granting legal downloads to all, it's still illegal. It seems the US MPAA and RIAA have been buying votes from Canadian legislators too. The artists might not get any richer, but the big monopolistic multnational companies demand more riches. I suspect it's also illegal to recieve streaming music too. I also suspect that for-profit music sharing like itunes will also be illegal (although there might be amendments, such as, if it's a big multinaitonal company making billions of dollars, then it's ok. If it's a local garage band just looking for a little exposure, DIE!

Re:I've always wondered why there isn't more of th

[julesh]

You have to hire the music, which includes a fee payable to the estate of the composer in most cases.

Something like 90% of all classical music is now public domain. Why would anyone pay fees to composers' estates?

Your work? Which work?

[jotaeleemeese]

Your work as a musician is to get up your ass and perform for an audience.

Or composing music on request.

Or teaching.

Your work is not recording once something and then sit down to do nothing and expect to be paid for that.

Technology has distoreted completely the way musicians think about music, before the advent of recordings musicians earned their living doing some actual work.

Now many musicians expect to be paid for one performance that happens to be recorded. The recording industry has brainwashed them, and in the process they have lost touch what music is all aobut: people relating to people, in the meatspace mind you.

Recording of any kind, specially nowadays where copying them is practically impossible to stop, should be considered as a nice advertisment vehicle from which some (very few) may even derve an income.

All the "semi-professionals" expecting to make money from recordings are simply completely unrealistic and obviously have been living in a cave for the last 10 years.

Re: Really Cool BBC Network Map - Thanks!

[billstewart]

Thanks! That's a really extensive network they've got. Looks like my downloads were coming direct from London via Abovenet, rather than from some caching server in the US, which makes the performance even more impressive.

Re:I've always wondered why there isn't more of th

[Anonymous Coward]

The BBC license says that you can download them for a week. It says nothing about keeping the files, just sharing them later.