FREE/BARGAIN — Media Deals (non-eBook/non-audiobook)

[GtrsRGr8]

Happy Monday.

The first freebie of the week (M-F) from YourClassical comes from the Naxos album The Best of Mozart - Eine kleine Nachtmusik - Piano Concerto No. 21 - Jupiter Symphony - Clarinet Concerto - Symphony No. 40 and many others. The free piece is Sleigh Ride.

Credits for the album: Capella Istropolitana, and Johannes Wildner as conductor. This Naxos webpage has lots of additional great information about the album.

Still being a newbie to this classical music thing, I don't know what this piece sounds like. There is a popular piece that I think has the same title, but I think that someone like Bing Crosby wrote it. No matter, I've just downloaded the piece and am about to take a listen as I continue to write.

The free piece runs 3 minutes, 23 seconds. You probably know the place and procedure to both listen to the piece via streaming and/or to go ahead and download it: navigate to this webpage. You will see the place, immediately underneath the thumbnail of the album cover, to stream the piece. Further down the webpage, there is a "Direct MP3 download link," which if you click will automatically download the piece to your device.

I've finished listening to the piece. I still didn't recognize it. ha It is a pretty piece, even though Mozart's music is a little too, what I will call "lively," for my tastes.

[issybird]

Originally Posted by Catlady

I'd put Gershwin in the Broadway/popular category--he and brother Ira gave us standards like "Embraceable You," "Someone to Watch Over Me," "Fascinating Rhythm," "They Can't Take That Away From Me," "I Got Rhythm."

Originally Posted by skinmaan

You get my point, then. A lot of American composers of that time straddled the line, stylistically. No one questions whether Ravel or Stravinsky (contemporaries) are classical music. The Gershwins definitely had Jazz influences in their music ("I Got Rhythm" is a classic example) so some would argue whether their music should be considered Classical or Jazz. I think it is largely irrelevant now days. Most people would consider his orchestral arrangements as Classical. Shorter compositions might be termed Jazz or Popular.

Stage performance material sometimes gets its own classification or other times is lumped in with others. "Porgy & Bess" was a stage performance but is generally today classified as an English opera, which is a subset of classical. Ballets by Tchaikovsky and Stravinsky are similarly classical music. In contrast, we also have "Jazz Musicals" and "Rock Operas."

It probably goes without saying that this is a particularly favorite topic of mine, so I could go on for days. I'll stop blabbering on about it now before the All-Powerful Hand of the Moderator descends.

Americans aren't going to win a classical music competition, but who's keeping score anyway? On the other hand, the US gave us jazz and the American songbook, both great of their kind, just not as "high culture" as classical. We're richer for all of them.

[Catlady]

Originally Posted by skinmaan

Stage performance material sometimes gets its own classification or other times is lumped in with others. "Porgy & Bess" was a stage performance but is generally today classified as an English opera, which is a subset of classical. Ballets by Tchaikovsky and Stravinsky are similarly classical music. In contrast, we also have "Jazz Musicals" and "Rock Operas."

A pet peeve of mine is calling a theater musical an opera, as though that somehow elevates it to a more important cultural realm. Certain of Stephen Sondheim's works, for example, are sometimes considered opera, but just because a musical is sung-through, it's not opera. Theater musicals are their own art form, even when performed by opera companies.

[GtrsRGr8]

Well, the All-Powerful Hand of the Moderator has not descended yet, so I'd like to jump in. And, I did make one truly legitimate post on this thread today (#1216), after all, so maybe I've got one credit to spend.

Actually, without pulling out the rulebook to confirm, is it being all that naughty to make ancillary remarks, like the above that you all have made, to a clearly legitimate post (about the Naxos album choices)?

Anyway, the only reason that it matters to me about what country produced the most and best classical composers is that I am a nationalist at heart. I love America, and I want to be better than any other country in everything. I think that citizens of most countries feel the same way about their countries.

If you put all of the theatrical music and motion picture scores under the rubric of "classical music," I think that someone could make the claim that America has had more great classical composers than any other country. But we are a nation of mongrels (present company not excepted) and immigrants, however. Based upon my limited biographical knowledge about them, it seems to me that people who were first-generation immigrants to the U.S. (especially from places like Eastern Europe, Russia, and Germany) probably have produced more and better theatrical music and motion picture scores than the rest of composers of those types of music in the U.S. combined.

[Red Falcon]

George Gershwin has a few pieces that I definitely consider "Classical" such as An American in Paris, A Rhapsody In Blue and his Piano Concerto in F. Gershwin used Jazz Elements in most of his music as that was the major musical idiom of his time. Other composers such as Grieg, Chopin, Dvorak also used their native musical idioms and incorporated them into their "Classical Music". The songs he wrote the music for and his brother Ira wrote the lyrics for are popular music that fit into what he was being done at the time. His opera Porgy and Bess is one the finest musical works ever created by an American Musical artist IMO.

[Red Falcon]

If you put all of the theatrical music and motion picture scores under the rubric of "classical music," I think that someone could make the claim that America has had more great classical composers than any other country. But we are a nation of mongrels (present company not excepted) and immigrants, however. Based upon my limited biographical knowledge about them, it seems to me that people who were first-generation immigrants to the U.S. (especially from places like Eastern Europe, Russia, and Germany) probably have produced more and better theatrical music and motion picture scores than the rest of composers of those types of music in the U.S. combined.

I would argue that Film, TV and Video Game Music is the natural evolution of Classical Music. Most Classical Music was composed originaly to be used in informal settings such as parties and other gatherings as background or mood enhancing music. I see Visual Arts music as falling into that category. I got into Classical Music through both Film Scores, particularly 80's films like Star War and Indian Jones and listening to the music and interviews of artists like Billy Joel, Elton John, Iron Maiden and Metallica who all had classical music training as part of their backgrounds.

Some of my favorite film composers are:

John Williams - Almost every Steven Spielberg movie and all the Star Wars movies pre Disney and the first three Harry Potter Movies

Danny Elfman - Most of Tim Burton's movies and the Jack Nicholson Batman

Bernard Herrmann - Most of the major American Alfred Hitchcock films

Howard Shore - The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit (With some help)

Hans Zimmerman - Interstellar, The Last Samurai, Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl and a bucket load more

[GtrsRGr8]

Enjoy a free MP3 from the Naxos album My First Christmas Album.

Actually, as the title of the album suggests, it would be the little ones who would be mostly likely to enjoy it. It's an album of Christmas songs for children:
The ‘My First’ album series from Naxos is the ideal springboard for a lifelong journey through classical music. Each selection is carefully tailored for younger listeners and includes famous tracks as well as unexpected gems. The booklet is full of information on every piece of music. Unique and imaginative, these CDs will open a door to a wonderful world that children and parents can discover together.

Can you imagine Christmas without music? No singing, no jingling. Only Scrooge would be happy with that! It is a time for music to fill the air. Part of the fun is hearing things that are only played at Christmas and at no other time of year—carols that make you think of the end of term, or the holidays, or bobble hats; songs that make you think of food, or snow, or stockings. Here are some of the most popular carols, as well as some other surprises… Merry Christmas! (from http://www.naxos.com/catalogue/item...._code=8.578340).

The piece, Marc-Antoine Charpentier - Noels sur les instruments: Vous qui desirez zans fin, is performed by Aradia Ensemble. Kevin Mallon is the conductor.

I just got through downloading the free piece (you can download it, too, by clicking on the link "Direct MP3 download link" on this webpage). I enjoyed it, too; 'course I'm just really a big kid at heart.

Look for another free piece from YourClassical tomorrow (Wednesday).

[GtrsRGr8]

Alexander Street updated their free download of the week webpage, in the last day or so, and with that update are making the offer to us of a new group of free classical pieces.

This week's download features Trois Gymnopedies by Erik Satie. Here are the three pieces from it that you can get free:
- Lent et douloreux
- Lent et triste
- Lent et grave

In case you are not familiar with the pieces, all of them are piano pieces (these renditions are performed by pianist France Clidat). To describe them simply and concisely, they are soft and slow. Great stuff with which to put you to sleep.

I say that it's great stuff with which to put you to sleep for descriptive reasons and not pejorative ones! It is calming music. Sometimes, when I want to fall asleep, this is exactly the kind of classical music that I want to hear! These Satie pieces are a perfect illustration of the statement in one of William Congreve's plays, "Music hath charms to soothe a savage breast" (often misquoted, "music hath charms to soothe the savage beast." It may have the power to do that, too (I've never actually tried it to see if it works), but Congreve was talking about soothing the souls of men and women, not those of wild, vicious animals).

Anyway, to get Alexander Street's weekly freebies you do have to have an account with them. This webpage is the perfect one on which to sign up, because after you do that, you can go back to the same webpage to proceed in downloading the free pieces that you want (after you've signed up, a prominent medium blue button, saying "Download," should appear in the bottom righthand corner of Erik Satie's photo; you'll need to click on it in order to go to the webpage where you actually can download the free pieces).

ADDENDUM: They are all MP3 pieces.

[GtrsRGr8]

Somewhere on a 5-CD album from the Capriccio company, called Christmas Meditation, there is a piece, called Traditional [referring to the lyricists, G] - Maria durch ein Dornwald ging, that is free for us today from YourClassical.

Dresden Kreuzcher performs it; Martin Flamig is the conductor.

There is a Naxos webpage dedicated to the album from which this piece is taken. You can find the webpage here. As I've mentioned before, I haven't been able to determine if, in situations like this, Naxos is the parent company of the publishing company, or just owns and maintains an album database that another company uses. I've listened to enough classical music in the last nine months or so that I believe Naxos to be one of the "tops" in their industry, and knowing that they published this album would only bolster my estimation of this album. Maybe I will run across some information along those lines, before the day's promotion is over, and share those with you.

As always, in my vetting process of the freebies from all of the classical music companies, I have downloaded, opened, and currently am listening to this entire 3 minute, 24 second MP3 free piece (It's a tough job, but someone's got to do it. ). This piece is choral and, at the same time, has a folksong-type of "feel" to it. That's about the limit of my helpfulness giving you information about that.

You can download it for yourself, again it's free (and without any account being required! Woo hoo!), and listen to it for yourself. Just click on the "Direct MP3 download link" on this webpage, and the download will being immediately. Additionally/alternatively, you may listen to the piece without downloading it, by streaming the piece. You can do that from the same webpage.

Good night, or whatever it is where you are now.

[GtrsRGr8]

Through casual observation over time, it appears that a new YourClassical freebie is posted from between 1 a.m. and 2 a.m. each weekday morning. It's about 1:00 a.m. right now. I generally hit the sack between about 1 a.m.-2 a.m.

I'll be monitoring the YourClassical website for the new freebie of the day, while taking care of some other business. I like to post them as early in the day as possible, but if I don't do it between 1 a.m. and 2 a.m., it will be considerably later in the day before I can. Remember, however, that YourClassical does archive their freebies of the day for at least a two week or so period of time, the only classical music freebie provider that I know that does that (although at least one of them keeps their freebies up for a month).

Think classical music is basically passe? While looking over the YourClassical homepage, I saw a factoid that is pretty stunning. Who sold the most CD's this year--Adele (I love her performance of Skyfall, BTW (but I've not heard a James Bond movie theme song yet that I didn't like)) or Mozart? It was Mozart! In fact, "there were more Mozart CD's sold this year than discs by any pop artist." YourClassical attributes that to a massive new box set. That may be so, but nevertheless . . . . 

Okay, here we go. The freebie for today is an 11 minute, 47 second piece, Ralph Vaughn Williams - Fantasia On Christmas Carols.

It comes from the Naxos album Vaughn Williams - Hodie (Christmas Cantata) Fantasia on Christmas Carols.

As far as the performance of the individual, free piece is concerned, YourClassical credits both the Guildford Choral Society (I'm guessing for the singing part. ha) and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra (I'm guessing for the instrumental part. ha). Hilary Davan Wetton is the conductor.

The Naxos dedicated webpage for the album notes that Fantasia on Christmas Carols is a "traditional" piece.

To stream the piece, click on the right arrow on the streaming bar on this YourClassical webpage. Follow the "Direct MP3 download link" on that same webpage to download the piece, and it should begin immediately.

"Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night."

[GtrsRGr8]

Spend $9.49 at Amazon and get Mairead Nesbitt's brand new (in fact, I think that I read on one website that it was still a pre-order item there) album, Hibernia. Alternatively, pay nothing, and get the entire 15-track album from NoiseTrade.

You may have never heard of Nesbitt before. But you may have heard of the music group Celtic Woman. Well, Nesbitt was a member of that group, until she decided to strike out on her own recently. Hibernia is her first solo album.

Let me quote a few lines about Nesbitt, and her new album, from NoiseTrade:
No stranger to the Celtic and world music scene, Máiréad Nesbitt, formerly of global phenomenon Celtic Woman steps out on her solo journey with Hibernia. Steeped in the traditions of both classical and Irish folk music, Máiréad brings the seemingly irreconcilable worlds of the Celts and the Classics together to create an exhilarating album of the music and tunes of Éire. Hibernia features beautiful slow airs, vocals, lively dance tunes and ferocious fast paced reels.

I listened to the entire album, courtesy of my free account with Spotify. I would call her music eclectic, with a Celtic element being most dominant. The violin, as in Celtic music, is often prominent in her songs. Frankly, I don't care for pure Celtic music--it's just too grating or something. I was very pleased with her music, where the Celtic element was more subdued. NoiseTrade describes the genre as "World: Celtic." You can read more about what they say about the album, here.

I don't think that you'll need it (ha), but here is the webpage at Amazon for the album, in case you want to pay $9.49 for it. I don't think that you'll find it a source for much more information of real help than I've given above or that you can find at NoiseTrade, however.

In case you've never used NoiseTrade before, here is how to download the free album. Go to NoiseTrade's dedicated webpage for the album that I mentioned above. Underneath the thumbnail is an orange button that says "Download." Click on it. Follow the prompts and instructions. It will download to your default drive as a zip file, and unpack as MP3 files. They strongly will encourage you to leave a tip along the way, but you do not have to leave any at all in order to receive the album.

[AnemicOak]

Free from Sirius/XM The Brian Setzer Orchestra Holiday Download (MP3).
http://happyholidays.siriusxmevents.com/

There are download links for each track and below that a link to download the entire album at once...

• The Nutcracker Suite
• Jingle Bells
• Carol Of The Bells
• Deck The Halls
• Angels We Have Heard On High
• Hark! The Herald Angels Sing
• O Little Town Of Bethlehem
• Swingin’ Joy (“Joy To The World”)
• Take A Break Guys (“God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen”)
• O Holy Night
• The Amens

[AnemicOak]

More free albums from Microsoft. It's for "Free Music Thursday" so I'm not sure how much longer they'll be free.

• Got Your Six (Deluxe) by Five Finger Death Punch
  https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/stor...x/8d6kgx08fkd5
• Still Brazy (Deluxe) by Yg
  https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/stor...y/8d6kgx0q0d8l
• Last Year Was Complicated by Nick Jonas
  https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/stor...d/8d6kgx0pvrlw
• The Human Condition by Jon Bellion
  https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/stor...n/8d6kgx0pnlqr
• Who You Selling For by Pretty Reckless
  https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/stor...r/8d6kgwx4dnxz
• I Told You by Tory Lanez
  https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/stor...u/8d6kgx0sl8bf
• Energia by J. Balvin
  https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/stor...a/8d6kgx0p8nw0

[GtrsRGr8]

Originally Posted by AnemicOak

More free albums from Microsoft. It's for "Free Music Thursday" so I'm not sure how much longer they'll be free.

• Got Your Six (Deluxe) by Five Finger Death Punch
  https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/stor...x/8d6kgx08fkd5
• Still Brazy (Deluxe) by Yg
  https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/stor...y/8d6kgx0q0d8l
• Last Year Was Complicated by Nick Jonas
  https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/stor...d/8d6kgx0pvrlw
• The Human Condition by Jon Bellion
  https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/stor...n/8d6kgx0pnlqr
• Who You Selling For by Pretty Reckless
  https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/stor...r/8d6kgwx4dnxz
• I Told You by Tory Lanez
  https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/stor...u/8d6kgx0sl8bf
• Energia by J. Balvin
  https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/stor...a/8d6kgx0p8nw0

Thanks. But, again, I wish Microsoft had albums on sale from some established, popular artists. The only name that I even recognized was Nick Jonas', and that is because of his and his brothers' band (which in my opinion wasn't any good). I've heard him sing a few lines during his solo career, though, and he and his musical style, may be popular among the younger crowd.

[AnemicOak]

Originally Posted by GtrsRGr8

Thanks. But, again, I wish Microsoft had albums on sale from some established, popular artists.

Well, most of those albums charted in the top 15 (the worst one was like #38) so I'd say they are popular artists depending on the audience.

These are currently albums that sell well so I'm sure at least some Microsoft customers will be happy to get them for free instead of paying $8-$12 each.