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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."
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.
"Empathise with stupidity, and you're halfway to thinking like an idiot." - Iain M. Banks
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!
"The newly born animals are then whisked off for a quick run through a giant baking oven." --heard on Food Network
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.
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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.
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 :)
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.
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.
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).
"Long run is a misleading guide to current affairs. In the long run we are all dead." (John Maynard Keynes)
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
liqbase
Here are some additional (non-torrent) download links : http://www.mp3music.bz/mp3/browse.php?category=603
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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).
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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
Here's a torrent for all nine
This is a tautology.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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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.
It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning.
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-
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.
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.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
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.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
Only problem is the 2 minutes of talking before the music.
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.
String quartets op. 127 (128?) and beyond. You know what an opus is.
"Long run is a misleading guide to current affairs. In the long run we are all dead." (John Maynard Keynes)
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?
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.
:) Listen to all of the two-part inventions.
Bach's well-tempered clavier, book one. Kind of a "best hits" of Bach.
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.