I learned that Classical-music.com's
free download of the week is now available.
The name of the piece is
Saint-Saens Elegie, Op. 143.
This week's download is Saint-Saëns's Elégie, performed by violinist Rosanne Philippens and pianist Julien Quentin. It features on their recording of French music, Dedications, out now on Channel Classics.
'Philippens's brilliantly focused expressive sound is coupled with an inspired programme,' wrote Elinor Cooper in the January issue of BBC Music Magazine. 'An absolute joy from start to finish.'
Downloading it is easy peasy. If you're a registered user, and have logged in to your account, navigate to
this webpage. You should see a button, in bright red, partially covering the thumbnail image of the album,
Dedications, from which the
free piece comes. Click on it. Your download should begin immediately!
As the blurb above pointed out, the
free piece comes from a Channel Classics album. I've come to know Channel Classics as a provider of very high quality music but, alas, this one is just an MP3. FYI--Channel Classics does sell an MP3, of all tracks, for $9.76 (
http://www.channelclassics.com/philippens-38516.html), but I don't know how the specifications compare with those of the
free piece that we get. (BTW--the webpage which I just referenced is Channel Classics' dedicated one for the
Dedications album, and there's lots of great information, on
the webpage, about that album. A heads up: I found the webpage referenced in the two previous links to be very, very slow to load. I noticed on ChannelClassics.com's homepage that they were revamping the site--perhaps that explains the issue).
My opinion of the piece, should anyone be interested . . . . I don't care for it. I don't like the song, and the violin is grating to me. Whether or not it stays on my hard drive is very much in doubt. YMMV.