Daniel Bautista - Symphony No. 1 in A minor, Op. 12

Hey, remember me?  It's been an awfully long time since I've posted here - more than a year, it seems, and even longer since I've posted regularly.  I think I just got overwhelmed with a lot of things in 2010, and blogging was something that had to go, despite a few attempts to get back into it.  However,  I had a wonderful time posting about Christmas music on my other blog last month, so I think I'm finally ready to start posting here again too.

The first album I want to share is Daniel Bautista's Symphony No. 1 in A minor, Op. 12.  If you're a longtime reader of this blog, you might recognize the name from a post I did about three years ago.  This new album has as its centerpiece an original symphony for guitars, drums, and bass.  It sounds like an extremely ambitious undertaking, but I think he pretty much nailed it.  Even though I was already familiar with his work, I still found myself pleasantly surprised by this album.  It's very heavy, complex, and melodic.  It's also very memorable - I have caught myself humming and whistling some of the themes from it on many occasions.  I really hope that the "No. 1" in the title is a sign of things to come - I would love to hear more symphonies from this amazingly talented musician.

After the four movements of the symphony have concluded, there are a few bonus tracks to round out the album, including a beautiful version of Satie's  "Gymnopedie No. 1" and a cool progressive metal track called "Free Guitars Forever".  All in all, I would highly recommend this album to any fans of classical or progressive metal music.

Happy listening!

URL:

http://www.jamendo.com/en/album/104855

Song Spotlight: Trans-Siberian Orchestra - "Child of the Night"

Trans-Siberian Orchestra's newest album, Night Castle, has been in production for a number of years; I think I first heard it mentioned around 2004 or 2005.  Though it didn't take as long to produce as Chinese Democracy did, there were times I thought that the band might be pulling a Guns N' Roses on us, and that my own kids would be grown up before we could hear the album.  Thankfully that didn't turn out to be the case, as the album is finally being released today as a 2-CD, 26-song set.  One of those songs, "Child of the Night", can be downloaded for free from the Atlantic Records website.  The page states that you have until December 31, 2009 to redeem your free download, and an email address is required in order to access it (although the download link just becomes visible on the page - it is not emailed to you).

"Child of the Night" is a very beautiful little song, about as far away from TSO's normally bombastic, guitar driven, operatic rock as they've ever gotten.  After exploring the album's website for a little while, I came across a free PDF of what looks to be the complete liner notes for the album (seriously, go check it out - it's really cool, although I don't think I'll be looking at too much of it just yet, as the storyline is always one of the biggest treats of a new TSO album for me, and I like to experience it as a whole with the music), I learned that the music for the song was composed by Léo Delibes, and is in fact a cover of "The Flower Duet" from his opera Lakmé.

If you enjoy the classical side of Trans-Siberian Orchestra, you may be interested in checking out some of the source music for their Beethoven's Last Night album.  Assuming I can find enough of the relevant music, I'll also be making a similar post for Night Castle (once I get it), and I have already begun tracking down source music for their Christmas albums, which I will be posting about on my Free Christmas Music blog very soon.  Happy listening!

URLs:

http://flash.atlrec.com/tso/form/index.php (the song)

http://www.nightcastlealbum.com/flash_site.html (liner notes and other information about the album)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Flower_Duet

http://totallyfreemusic.blogspot.com/2009/02/classical-music-of-trans-siberian.html

http://freechristmasmusic.blogspot.com/

Album Spotlight: Ludwig van Beethoven - Symphony No. 9 in D minor, Op. 125 (Choral Symphony / Ode to Joy)

This week, the folks at classical.com have made Beethoven's 9th Symphony available for free download.  This is one of the most famous pieces of music ever written, so there's very little I could say about it that hasn't already been said.  For such a famous piece of music, however, this is actually the first time I've come across a full version of it for free; even Classic Cat (a site that I've posted about before) only has an incomplete version listed.  Actually, I have to take that back - I'm listening to it right now, and I notice that the fourth movement has been shortened; still, until a more complete version comes along, this is well worth grabbing.

If you're new to classical music, this symphony makes a great starting point, as you're probably already familiar with at least a few parts of it (especially the "Ode to Joy" which forms the basis of the fourth movement).  This version is performed by Orchestre National Bordeaux Aquitaine, with Alain Lombard conducting.  As with all free downloads from classical.com, this one is available in both MP3 and WMA formats, at 128 or 192 Kbps; more importantly, it will only be up for a couple of weeks, so if you want it, get it while you can.  Happy listening!

URLs:

http://www.classical.com/free-music-download.php?download_id=113672

http://www.classiccat.net/beethoven_l_van/125.htm

http://totallyfreemusic.blogspot.com/2009/02/free-music-resource-classical-music-on.html

Album Spotlight: Diablo Swing Orchestra - The Butcher's Ballroom

Sometimes I find it difficult to pick something to write about on this blog.  Other times, the choice is obvious.  This is one of the more obvious choices.  Last week, an album called The Butcher's Ballroom by the Diablo Swing Orchestra appeared almost simultaneously on two blogs that I follow - namely, Free Albums Galore and Free Metal Albums (in fact, if you are a regular visitor to this blog, you may already have spotted this album in the sidebar under the Free music from around the web section, as both of those blogs are included there).  Marvin at Free Albums Galore wrote an excellent review of the album - as soon as I read the phrase "an insane combination of heavy metal, swing jazz, a traditional European music smorgabord, and a classical soprano voice that probably broke wine glasses in the studio," I knew that this was an album I had to check out.

 

It didn't take me very long to see that Marvin was absolutely right about this album.  This is probably the weirdest sounding album I've heard since I discovered Thumpermonkey Lives!; I think that if I hadn't already been used to hearing music that is a little on the strange side (such as Thumpermonkey Lives!, Mr. Bungle, and Devil Doll), my own head probably would have exploded upon hearing The Butcher's Ballroom - it really is that crazy.  The Diablo Swing Orchestra have managed to take all of the disparate genres listed above and craft a sound that is utterly unique; instead of sounding gimmicky (which would have been all too easy to do), it just works.  The swing metal of the opening track, "Balrog Boogie", does a great job of establishing the mood of the album; if you haven't been scared off after this song, then sit back and enjoy the ride, as it only keeps getting better.  "D'angelo", one of two short ballads on the album, is absolutely beautiful, consisting only of acoustic guitar and operatic female vocals; the other, "Qualms of Conscience", is a solo piano piece.  One of my favourite moments on the album is the transition between the sitar-infused "Gunpowder Chant" and "Infralove", which starts with an electronic beat before hopping into a number of different styles.  My favourite song overall is the final one, "Pink Noise Waltz", which throws just about everything in the band's arsenal at the listener, going from metal to a piano solo to a flute solo to a chugging NWOBHM groove to a cool jazzy outro.

 

The Butcher's Ballroom really is something that needs to be heard to be believed.  If you like adventurous, experimental music that doesn't conform to any preset standards, this is definitely something you should hear.  It can currently be downloaded as a 76.18 MB zip file from Jamendo.  Happy listening!

 

URLs:

http://freealbums.blogsome.com/2009/08/12/diablo-swing-orchestra-the-butchers-ballroom/

http://freemetalalbums.wordpress.com/2009/08/12/diablo-swing-orchestra-the-butchers-ballroom/

http://totallyfreemusic.blogspot.com/2008/01/artist-spotlight-thumpermonkey-lives.html

http://www.jamendo.com/en/album/49216

Some free music for Easter

I have a little bit of Easter music to share with you on this Easter weekend. I wanted to have more music to share and to have this post up earlier, but that didn't quite work out. I hope you will still enjoy this music anyway.

First, classical.com currently has Giovanni Battista Pergolesi's Stabat Mater available as a free download. As with all free downloads from classical.com, you need to act quickly if you want to get this one, as it will only be available for a couple of weeks.

Second, much of Handel's Messiah can be found between Classic Cat and Wikipedia. While Messiah is most commonly performed during Christmas, it was actually first performed during Lent - in fact, the entire second part of the work's three parts ("The Passion") relates to the Easter season, and the "Hallelujah" chorus is found in the middle of parts II and III. You won't find the complete work between these two sites, but most of the first two parts (including "Hallelujah") are there.

Finally, and more on the contemporary side, an acoustic version of Marillion's "Easter" can be found on their Downloads page (not the most well organized page I've ever seen, but the MP3s can be found on the left side under Audio Tracks; "Easter" itself is under RTL2 Radio Session, 7 June 2004). First released nearly 20 years ago on Seasons End, this has long been one of Marillion's most popular songs. The version found here is very stripped down, but still very beautiful.

However you have been spending this Easter Sunday, I hope you have been enjoying it. If you find any of this music enjoyable, then so much the better. Happy listening, and Happy Easter!

URLs:

http://www.classical.com/album/FF16835 (no longer available for free)

http://www.classiccat.net/handel_gf/56.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Sound/list

http://www.marillion.com/fans/downloads.htm

Free Music Resource: Classical.com

If you're a regular visitor to this blog, then you may have already noticed the "Free music from around the web" section on the sidebar. The purpose of this section is to spotlight some free music sources that I regularly download from; each source includes a link to its website as well as to the latest offering from that source. I hope these links will be found useful by enabling more music to be discovered beyond what I cover in my posts.

Right now, I would like to highlight one of these sources - the one called Free Classical Music. This is actually a very small subset of a site called Classical.com, which features a wealth of information about classical music as well as a few other genres. In order to be able to download anything from the site, you will need to register for a free account, at which time you can begin exploring the site at your leisure. Once you've got your account set up, though, you can immediately begin downloading free albums from the site.

I've only been using this site for a couple of weeks, and in that time they have been offering 2 albums for download each week while also keeping the previous week's 2 albums available; I don't know if this has always been or will always be the case, but it currently allows for a decent selection at any given time. Some of the albums are compilations featuring works by various composers, like a recent album with works by Monteverdi and Schutz; others feature a selection of works by a single composer, my favourite so far being a Mozart album with 2 concertos, a symphony, and the overture to "The Magic Flute" (that one has more than 90 minutes of music). Full information about the most current albums can be obtained by clicking on their album covers.

My usual tendency with other classical music resources is to go for composers or works that I am already familiar with. Since the albums here are chosen by Classical.com, I'm not always able to do that, so I have found this to be a great way to sample classical music that is not necessarily familiar to me. Download speeds have been very fast for me; often it only takes a few minutes from starting my download to being able to listen to it.

The album selection is updated each Tuesday. If you're a fan of RSS feeds, I have created one using Feedity that you can use to keep up to date with the latest offerings; you can subscribe to it at http://feedity.com/rss.aspx/classical-com/W1NWUlE (NOTE: unfortunately, this feed has stopped working). Otherwise, be sure to keep checking back on the site every Tuesday to see what's new. Happy listening! 

URLs:
http://www.classical.com/free-classical-music.php
http://www.classical.com/
http://www.classical.com/register/
http://totallyfreemusic.blogspot.com/2009/02/free-music-resource-classical-music-on.html
http://feedity.com/

http://feedity.com/rss.aspx/classical-com/W1NWUlE (no longer working)

Artist Spotlight: Daniel Bautista

I discovered Daniel Bautista last month via the free MP3s recommended in my last.fm account. A look at his last.fm artist page showed songs with titles like "Moonlight Sonata", "Symphony No. 5", and "Symphony No. 9" among his top tracks. Even without being on a classical music kick, I would have easily recognized these song titles; given the fact that I've been listening to little but classical music for a while now, this seemed like something that would be right up my alley. Another thing I noticed on this page is the "jamendo" tag. I've covered Jamendo here before, and it is still a site that I use regularly for discovering new music. A quick search on Jamendo brought me to Daniel's artist page, where the two albums that jumped out at me right away were Beethoven and Classics and Soundtracks.

Beethoven is a collection of six of Ludwig van Beethoven's compositions arranged for guitar. There are three instrumental styles on the album, each represented by two tracks. The first style is guitar and drums, in which multiple guitars are overdubbed to achieve an orchestral effect with the drums providing accents rather than a beat; the overall sound lies somewhere between classical music and heavy metal. "Symphony No. 5" opens the album in this style, and is actually a guitar-based version of the entire first movement of that piece. The other song in this style is "Symphony No. 9"; this time Daniel summarizes the various movements of the piece. The slow, ominous feel of the first movement soon gives way to the more technical second movement, allowing him to really showcase his mastery of the instrument. About midway through this 10-minute song, the fourth movement begins, which includes a beautiful rendering of the famous "Ode to Joy". Here Daniel's skill as an arranger is on full display; what begins as a solitary guitar playing the melody gradually builds into a small orchestra of guitars and drums, bringing the piece to a rousing and rocking finish.

The second style is similar to the first, in that it consists of layers upon layers of electric guitars, but without any drums. "Symphony No. 7" is the first such track, consisting of just over 3 minutes from the second movement of the titular symphony. This track is very beautiful, and has given me new appreciation for the original. I actually had trouble figuring out where in the symphony this brief excerpt was from, and even thought it might have been mislabelled. After a few more listens to the original, I finally heard it at the beginning the second movement, and this is now my favourite part of the symphony. The second such song is "Grosse Fuge", which is actually a complete performance of "Große Fuge in B flat major", a string quartet. The interplay between the various guitar tracks is amazing in this song, and I think it also showcases an enormous amount of respect for Beethoven's music.

The third style of tracks employs classical guitar for a much more traditional sound. "Moonlight Sonata" is the complete first movement of "Piano Sonata No. 14 'Moonlight'". The guitars are still layered in this song, and there are some very nice stereo effects in it - listen to the song on headphones to hear the rhythm travelling from left to center to right throughout the piece. "Para Elisa", a brief, single guitar version of "Für Elise", closes the album, almost feeling like a tease after the five longer pieces that preceded it. I would certainly love to hear another album like this in the future, based either on Beethoven or another composer (Mozart, pretty please?).

The album description for Classics and Soundtracks states "This is the Jamendo edition of the album, there are plenty more classics in www.danielbautista.com". I guess this has something to do with the Creative Commons licenses used on Jamendo; in this case, what it basically amounts to is that the "Soundtracks" part of the album is not available from Jamendo. Should you choose to download the album from Jamendo, you will be treated to some excellent reinterpretations of some classical pieces. "The Four Seasons - Spring Allegro", for example, is a version of Vivaldi's famous piece arranged for classical guitar, while "The Four Seasons - Summer Presto" is an electric guitar version of its titular piece. There are a few songs based on works by Mozart, including "Symphony No. 25 (1st Movement)", a cool electric guitar version of that piece, and "Turkish March", which features a rock arrangement led by piano. A couple of my other favourites are Tchaikovsky's "Dance Of The Sugar Plum Fairy" and Rimsky-Korsakov's "Flight of the Bumblebee".

As good as all that is, I would highly recommend downloading the album from Daniel's own site. You get everything from the Jamendo version of the album plus 8 movie and television soundtrack selections. My favourites of these are "Superman" and "Lord of the Rings"; the soaring melodies in the "Superman" theme translate very well to the electric guitar, and "Lord of the Rings" is an excellent medley of the major themes from those films. If you're into torrents, you may notice that there is a link to a torrent for this album - that's how I downloaded it, and I'll be seeding it for a while, so if you don't feel like downloading all 22 files separately, this might be a good option for you.

If you do head to Daniel's site, you will notice that there is an incredible amount of music available for download - both solo material and from a variety of bands Daniel has played with over the years. I think it would be easy to spend weeks downloading and listening to all this music, and I think it is very likely that I may end up doing just that. Before I sign off here, I just want to briefly mention one more album, Madera Y Bronce, an album that showcases Daniel's skills on the acoustic guitar across a wide variety of genres. Some of the songs are acoustic versions of songs from Daniel's other albums, such as "In the Desert", which features a great chord progression, and "Difícil", a short progressive metal piece which translates amazingly well to the acoustic guitar; some are original songs, like the high speed country-tinged "Judge Holden"; and some are classical songs, including "Para Elisa" (the full version this time!) and a piece called "Bach Auf Der Gitarre", a medley of Bach's music featuring, among other things, his "Toccata and Fugue in D minor" (thanks to Mike G. for identifying that piece for me; if anyone knows any of the other pieces referenced in this song, would they kindly leave a comment here about it?).  

I am sure that this will not be the last time I blog about this amazingly talented and prolific young artist. At the rate he seems to put out new music, it probably won't be long before he has something else that I'll want to write about. I hope that this post will help to raise his profile a little as well, because artists as talented as Daniel Bautista deserve to be heard by lots of people. Happy listening!

URLs:
http://www.last.fm/music/Daniel+Bautista
http://www.jamendo.com/en/artist/daniel.bautista
http://www.jamendo.com/en/album/27602 (Beethoven)
http://www.jamendo.com/en/album/24585 (Classics and Soundtracks)
http://www.jamendo.com/en/album/39593 (Madera Y Bronce)
http://www.danielbautista.com/discography.php

Album Spotlight: Musical Soup (Mozart for babies and toddlers)

As some of you may know, I have young kids, so since I've been exploring classical music lately, it has been natural for me to look into the use of classical music as lullabies. A lot of what I have found on my own has been quite bombastic and not very suitable for lullabies. After a little bit of searching, I was happy to stumble upon a couple of collections of Mozart's music called Musical Soup from Munchkin. Both collections consist of a selection of popular Mozart pieces that have been developed and arranged by neurobiologist Dr. Norman M. Weinberger and Grammy award winner Jimmie Haskell.

The two collections are called Mozart: Wombsong Collection and Mozart for Toddlers. The download page breaks each collection up into three sections: "Wake Up", "Play Time", and "Sleepy Time"; each album can be downloaded in its entirety, as one of these sections, or as individual songs.

You won't find any complete symphonies or anything like that on these collections. Instead, there are dozens of clips ranging in length from under a minute to just over three minutes. A lot of Mozart's most famous tunes are included; I often find myself thinking "I know that piece" while listening to them. So even if you don't have kids, these collections can still serve as great primers to Mozart's vast catalogue of music, made even more helpful by the fact that most pieces have their Köchel-Verzeichnis numbers included as part of their titles (at least for Wombsong Collection; for Mozart for Toddlers, this information can still be found on the download page), which makes looking them up elsewhere a snap.

Whether you're looking for some music to play for your young ones or you're looking for a quick primer on Mozart's music, the Musical Soup albums are a great place to start. Happy listening!

URLs:
http://www.munchkin.com/information_station/downloads.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Köchel-Verzeichnis

The classical music of Trans-Siberian Orchestra's Beethoven's Last Night album

This post will be a little different from most of my posts. There will still be plenty of free music available in it, but the common thread between all of this music is an album that is not freely available (at least not in any legal way). To be honest, I'm really not sure how well this will work out, so I would really appreciate any feedback you might have about it (i.e. if you really don't like it, make sure you say so, or I'll probably just do it again in the future).

The album in question is Trans-Siberian Orchestra's Beethoven's Last Night. Released in 2000, this album is a full-blown rock opera featuring a fictionalized account of the final night in the life of Ludig van Beethoven as its subject matter. To summarize the story very briefly, Beethoven has just finished writing his Tenth Symphony (which was actually never completed in reality) when Mephistopheles (the devil) shows up to claim Beethoven's soul. Mephistopheles offers to let Beethoven keep his soul if the memory of his works is erased from all mankind. Over the next hour, the spirit Fate takes Beethoven back through his life and offers him the chance to make any changes that he wishes. Each time Beethoven requests to have a painful experience changed, he realizes that his music will suffer for it, and he finally informs Fate that he would not change any part of his life. When he tells Mephistopheles that he will not allow his music to be destroyed, Mephistopheles offers to let Beethoven keep his soul in exchange for his Tenth Symphony. When Beethoven refuses this offer as well, Mephistopheles points out the window at a young orphan and describes in graphic detail all the hardships he will inflict upon her if Beethoven will not comply with him.

If you haven't heard the album, I won't spoil the ending for you. It can easily be looked up on the Internet if you really want to know, although I would highly recommend picking up a copy of the album and listening to it and reading the accompanying story for yourself. If you're still not convinced, then perhaps listening to some of the incredible music contained on the album might help. A lot of the songs on the album are based around famous classical pieces, and thanks to Wikipedia and Classic Cat, I've been able to track down free recordings of every one of these pieces. Doing so has given me a new appreciation of the album; I hope that it will do the same for you if you've already heard it, and if you haven't heard it, I hope that you still enjoy the music featured here.

The album's overture features music from Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 14 "Moonlight", Piano Sonata No. 8 "Pathétique", Symphony No. 9, and Symphony No. 5, and Mozart's Requiem. A few other songs on the album are built around these pieces, while others feature them as brief interludes; for example, "What is Eternal" has a brief section from the 9th Symphony's "Ode to Joy" played on piano. Likewise, Beethoven's Symphony No. 6 makes a brief appearance in "The Moment".

Around the middle of the album, things really begin to get interesting. "Mozart" is a rock version of the overture of Mozart's Le Nozze de Figaro ("The Marriage of Figaro" in English), while "Requiem (The Fifth)" gives Beethoven's Symphony No. 5 a similar treatment, punctuated by a couple of brief sections from Mozart's Requiem.

One of the real highlights of the album is "A Last Illusion". The song starts with an acoustic guitar playing part of Mozart's Sonata No. 15 in C major. The rest of the first half of the song is based on Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov's "Flight of the Bumble Bee", which works very well in a metal context. Around the middle of the song, the 4th movement of Beethoven's 9th Symphony makes an appearance, first on piano, then joined by the rest of the band. The way all these elements work together is very moving, and this song proves to be pivotal to the album's storyline, as this is where Beethoven is given a chance to improvise with musicians from the past and future who were inspired by him; after this, he makes the decision not to change any part of his life.

The album's final lengthy instrumental is "Beethoven", which is mainly a metal version of the 2nd movement of Beethoven's 9th Symphony (which, upon closer inspection, is actually not available from Classic Cat; if I manage to find a free version of it somewhere, I will update this post with the link), with a little bit of his Piano Sonata No. 8 "Pathétique" included for good measure. The latter piece also plays a prominent role as part of the backing music in "Mephistopheles' Return". Rounding out the album's classical source music are Beethoven's "Für Elise", an abbreviated version of which is given its own track, and Frédéric Chopin's Op. 68 Mazurka No. 3, which serves as the backing music for much of "The Dreams of Candlelight".

Beethoven's Last Night has long been a favourite album of mine. Hearing where a lot of the music on the album comes from has given me an even deeper appreciation for it. The fact that it is sometimes difficult to tell where the classical music ends and the rock music begins is a true testament to the genius of Trans-Siberian Orchestra. I hope that you have been able to take some enjoyment from this post, whether it is as a longtime fan of the band or someone completely new to them. Happy listening!

URLs:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beethoven's_Last_Night (includes full track listing with source music, where appropriate)

http://www.classiccat.net/index.htm
http://www.classiccat.net/beethoven_l_van/27-2.htm (Piano Sonata No. 14 "Moonlight")
http://www.classiccat.net/beethoven_l_van/13.htm (Piano Sonata No. 8 "Pathétique")
http://www.classiccat.net/beethoven_l_van/125.htm (Symphony No. 9 "choral")
http://www.classiccat.net/beethoven_l_van/67.htm (Symphony No. 5 in C minor)
http://www.classiccat.net/mozart_wa/626.htm (Requiem)
http://www.classiccat.net/beethoven_l_van/68.htm (Symphony No. 6 "Pastorale")
http://www.classiccat.net/mozart_wa/492.htm (Le Nozze de Figaro)
http://www.classiccat.net/mozart_wa/545.htm (Sonata No. 15 in C major "Sonata semplice")
http://www.classiccat.net/rimsky-korsakov_n/57.htm (Flight of the Bumble Bee)
http://www.classiccat.net/beethoven_l_van/w59.htm (Für Elise)
http://www.classiccat.net/chopin_f/68.htm (4 Mazurkas Op. 68 - the 3rd one is what Trans-Siberian Orchestra used)

Free music resource: classical music on the Internet

I haven't posted here in a while. Part of the reason for that is that I've been all over the place musically in the last little while. I was on a brief metal kick, at which time I had at least half a dozen albums and artists that I wanted to post about. I thought about even making a series of metal posts, but I couldn't really make up my mind which one to start with. I'm sure I'll eventually get back to that, but for the time being I may as well make a post about what has really caught my fancy lately: classical music.

I've tried to get into classical music before, as it has always felt like something I "should" be listening to, especially as a fan of progressive rock: for example, the complex, multi-part arrangements of bands like Rush, Yes, and Dream Theater would seem to owe a lot to classical music; Trans-Siberian Orchestra's rock opera Beethoven's Last Night, a long-time favourite album of mine, relies heavily on the music of Beethoven and other famous composers; and I have long enjoyed the pairing of rock groups with orchestras as the likes of Metallica, KISS, and Dream Theater have done. I've tried, but could never seem to make a serious effort to get into it until now.

My current fascination with the genre stems from playing the "Mii Maestro" mode of Wii Music. This little game allows you to conduct a virtual orchestra by using the Wii remote as a baton. Among the pieces that can be conducted are Beethoven's "Ode to Joy" (a small section from the finale of his 9th symphony) and Vivaldi's "Spring" (one of the movements from his "Four Seasons" concerto). I had listened to the full versions of both of these pieces before, but pretending to conduct them sparked a new interest in me to give them another listen. I have also been back to working on my PhD full-time these last few weeks. I have generally found that instrumental music works better than vocal music when I am doing any sort of reading, so this provided a great reason to check out some more classical music.

Fortunately, there are plenty of places to download free classical music on the Internet, so you can easily start (or perhaps augment) your own classical music collection without spending a dime. The purpose of this post will be to point out a few of these sites.

The first such site I've found is called Classic Cat, which is actually a directory with links to thousands of classical performances. The home page contains a list of the top 100 composers. Clicking on a composer's name (I'll use Beethoven as an example) brings up a page with a list of works that can be freely downloaded. This list can be sorted in a variety of ways, including Name (the default), Genre (e.g. Ballet, Concerto, String Quartet, and Symphony), Year, and Popularity. I have found sorting by Popularity to be extremely useful, as it can be quite intimidating to be faced with a list of dozens of pieces and not know where to start. After the name of each piece, a series of numbers and letters in parentheses indicate how many performances of that piece are available, the approximate length of the longest performance, and whether or not any video is available. Clicking on the name of a piece (e.g Symphony No. 8 in F major) brings up a page with information about that piece, including the name and approximate length of each movement. Further down the page is a list of MP3s available; information here includes the name of the performer, the movements included in the performance (sometimes you will see "complete" here, meaning that the entire piece is available; other times only a few movements will be included), and a link to a page where you can download the actual MP3s.

There is such a wealth of material that can be found on Classic Cat that, so far, I haven't felt much of a need to look elsewhere for classical music downloads. A couple of additional sources that I have found useful are Musopen and, surprisingly, Wikipedia. The files on Wikipedia are ogg files; if you don't know how to use ogg files, there are instructions there. The main thing I've used Wikipedia for so far has been a complete performance of Vivaldi's "The Four Seasons", which I could not find anywhere else.

I hope that this brief introduction to free classical music on the Internet has been useful to you. I would also really love to know what anyone's favourite classical music is. I have not yet branched out too far from Beethoven, but I would really love to explore more of the genre, so knowing what other people like can often be a big help in looking for new music. Have fun, and happy listening!

URLs:
http://www.classiccat.net/
http://www.musopen.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Sound/list