Free music!

October 20, 2008 5:37 PM

Celebrating 120 years, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra is offering 10 symphonies as free downloads, available until November 24!

Featuring an excellent roster of conductors, these are terrific performances--but you have to register. (Seven performances are up as of today, the remaining three will be added by Thursday.)

posted by LooseFilter (17 comments total)

Bleugh. Someone put these in a torrent.
posted by LSK at 6:02 PM on October 20, 2008

Hamoncourt conducting Schubert? I would have paid money for that. But something about being asked to give up my name and address (even a fake one) sticks in my craw.
posted by Faze at 6:04 PM on October 20, 2008

[e-mail]
posted by basicchannel at 6:05 PM on October 20, 2008

Fantastic! Thanks, LooseFilter.
posted by carter at 6:18 PM on October 20, 2008

Are these in any kind of decent format and bit rate? Or are they horrible wma's or (shudder) real audio?
posted by fleetmouse at 6:47 PM on October 20, 2008

mp3, 320kbps
posted by Mark Doner at 6:55 PM on October 20, 2008

Awesome! But I'm uncultured enough that every time I see or hear "Concertgebouw", it reminds me of this. (Warning! Link contains potential earworm.)
posted by maudlin at 7:11 PM on October 20, 2008

Pah, 10 symphonies, but no The Man and the Journey?
posted by anazgnos at 7:37 PM on October 20, 2008

one of those ten files, it's actually Rick Astley. in Dutch.
posted by matteo at 7:47 PM on October 20, 2008

When I downloaded the Mahler, it loaded as a different file. It was called "19871009_Bernstein".

Did this happen to anyone else?

And, these are fantastic recordings. Thanks.
posted by elmer benson at 8:35 PM on October 20, 2008

Yeah, the registration bothers me too, but these performances are really quite good--I just finished listening to the Mahler 1 recording conducted by Bernstein, and it is exciting. (Plus, I figure if the Royal Concertgebouw wants to mail me concert season info all the way from the Netherlands, have at it.)

It was called "19871009_Bernstein".

Looks like they've named the files by performance date & conductor, so Bernstein conducting on 9/10/1987.
posted by LooseFilter at 9:16 PM on October 20, 2008

Very nice to listen radio 4 live, thanks.
posted by hortense at 9:40 PM on October 20, 2008

Thanks for the find LooseFilter, these are lovely.

And thanks for the registration basicchannel – worked like a charm.
posted by mandal at 12:34 AM on October 21, 2008

The registration was noxious, but I was reminded of my vow to do anything for classical music, and sucked it up.

What are they going to do? Send ninjas to drag me to concerts in Holland?
posted by QIbHom at 5:37 AM on October 21, 2008 [1 favorite]

You'll never see me coming.
posted by jouke at 11:01 AM on October 21, 2008

I couldn't care less about the registration. These are brilliant recordings. The Beethoven 2 is the only one I've gotten around to listening to, and it's fantastic.
posted by Autarky at 8:46 PM on October 21, 2008

Thank you - this is wonderful!!!!
posted by mightshould at 10:52 AM on October 22, 2008