Get a
free download of Nikolai Lugansky's Rachmaninov Prelude (for classical music devotees, it is Op. 23 No. 5
Alla marcia in G Minor).
Russian pianist Nikolai Lugansky performs this particular rendition of Rachmaninov's piece. The piece received four stars for both performance and recording in the May issue of
BBC Music Magazine (
BBC Music Magazine provides the
free classical-music.com pieces). This performance has received accolades from other sources, too.
Classical-music.com provides some interesting, and potentially useful, information about this piece, so let me quote it:
Rachmaninov completed this particular prelude in 1901 in his set of ten preludes (Op. 23), all recorded on Lugansky's latest disc. Rachmaninov himself performed the piece's premiere in Moscow in 1903. Like the concertos, the preludes Rachmaninov wrote are exceptionally demanding for the performer, both technically and emotionally. The Alla marcia
in particular requires immense agility, with octave leaps dominating the piece.
Here is
Classical-music.com's procedure for downloading their
freebies: 1) you must have an account (I think that if you are subscribed to their newsletter, you have an "account"); 2) if you have an acccount, you will have to log in (unless, perhaps, you've logged in to
the site recently); 3) navigate to
this webpage. You should see a bright red button, on top of a thumbnail of cover of the album from which the piece is taken (if you don't see the button, double-check to make sure that you are logged in); 4) click on that button. The download to your hard drive occurs automatically.
Classical-music.com states that they have
free downloads each week (the offer for this current
freebie is prefaced by "this week, our free download"). I think that that is probably accurate. The piece above is one of them.
Very important: BBC/classical-music.com does not always mention, in the title part of their emails, that the message contains an offer for a
free classical piece, when, in fact, it does. I didn't realize this until recently--I know that I must have missed out on a lot of
free classical music downloads because of it! If you want to maximize the
freebies that you get from BBC/classical-music.com (and who
doesn't want as many good freebies as they can get; I ask you
), check every email message that you get from them! I've still got some research to do, but I think that they offer a free
album once a month; the other
free downloads are of a piece, or maybe two or more pieces, from an album.