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

[GtrsRGr8]

Sorry for the belated YourClassical post today. If you happen not to see it before the change in free pieces occurs at YourClassical between 1 a.m.-2 a.m. Eastern time tomorrow morning, and would have liked to have gotten it, you can grab it here, at an archive that YourClassical maintains of their posts for the previous 7-10 days or so.

Today's free piece is Zigeunerin-Quadrille, from composer Johann Strauss II.

The piece is performed by the Slovak State Philharmonic Orchestra, Kosice. Alfred Walter is the conductor. This rendition runs 5 minutes, 2 seconds long.

In the event that you do not recognize the piece (I'm one of those who didn't), it is an operatic piece. It comes from a Naxos album called Johann Strauss II at the Opera. It is an album of "dances by Strauss based on the melodies from operas" of various composers, including Strauss. You can find out much more about the album by pointing your browser to this dedicated Naxos webpage for the album.

As with all of YourClassical's daily freebies, this one, too, is formatted in MP3. Take a listen to the piece by clicking on the stream bar on YourClassical's dedicated webpage for the free piece. On the same webpage there is a "Direct MP3 download link," which, if you click, will download the piece to your device of choice.

[Red Falcon]

Vudu has a deal to get three rentals for 99 cents each if you add a payment method.

http://view.email.vudu.com/?qs=a1068...edbb8c91334e8c

[GtrsRGr8]

Today's YourClassical free classical music piece comes from (the) New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, with Pietari Inkinen as the conductor.

The piece is part of a Naxos album of composer Jean Sibelius' works, called Sibelius Symphonies Nos. and 3. The piece that we can get free is Symphony No. 1: III. Scherzo.

This rendition of Symphony No. 1: III. Scherzo runs 5 minutes and 43 seconds. As with all of the freebies from YourClassical, today's is an MP3.

Here are a couple of important links. One is to the dedicated Naxos webpage for the entire album. The second one is to the webpage which has a way on it to stream the piece and/or for you to go ahead and download the free MP3. To download the piece from the second webpage, look for the link which says "Direct MP3 download link" and click/tap on it. The download occurs automatically.

[GtrsRGr8]

Classical-music.com offers a free classical music track each week. This week's is now available.

Here's some information about it, from Classical-music.com. The blurb is not very long, but it is packed with useful and interesting information:
The first free download of 2017 is the Kyrie from the Bohemian composer Jan Dismas Zelenka's Missa Divi Xaverii. The subject of this mass, and three litanies, is 16th-century Jesuit St Francis Xavier. He was the personal patron saint of Hapsburg Archduchess Maria Josepha, who was at the Dresden court with Zelenka during the 1720s.

The recording by Collegium Vocale 1704 received five stars in the July 2016 issue of BBC Music Magazine . 'Listeners will immediately be struck by Zelenka's distinctive and colourful deployment of instruments,' writes Nicholas Anderson. 'The work is full of vivid contrasts ranging from the resplendently orchestrated to the softly spoken.'

Classical-music.com is one of those meanies (just kidding about that) which requires you to have an account with them in order to get each freebie. There's not much involved in setting up an account. Here is (a) (the) sign up webpage. When you are logged in, you should see, on this webpage, a bright red "Download Now" button on the thumbnail photo of the album cover from which the free piece comes. Simply click on that button to download your free track automatically.

The freebie is an MP3, and runs approximately 3 minutes and 35 seconds long.

I found the instrumental part of the track to be lovely. Why hadn't I heard of composer Jan Dismas Zelenka before??? Anyway, I hope to hear a lot more of his work in the future. And, although I generally don't like the singing in classical music pieces, it was fairly subdued in this one and, actually, enjoyable.

[GtrsRGr8]

I was extra late Monday in making the post of this week's first YourClassical free classical piece. I mentioned at the time that the prior 7 to 10 or so posts are archived, so you could still get the piece and not to worry.

Well, I may want to go ahead on to bed and sleep in late tomorrow morning . . . er . . . I mean that I have an important business meeting to attend tomorrow and have to take an early flight out to get there. So, I thought that I would repeat the information from Monday about the archive that I mentioned Monday, and, while I'm at it, give you two other websites where those posts are archived. Again, that's in case I make a post of a piece that you would have liked to have had, but I made the post so late in the day that you missed it. You can go to one of the three archives and still download it. Keep in mind that the post for a new classical piece occurs sometime between 1 a.m. and 2 a.m. Eastern time each day (except for Saturday and Sunday).

I suspect that there may be more archives than these three, because there are so many agencies, organizations, and such like which are involved in some way with the giveaways (e.g., Minnesota Public Radio, publicradio.org, YourClassical, American Public Media, et al.); however, if there are additional archives I am not aware of them at the present time.

First, the archive that I already gave you--http://www.yourclassical.org/topics/daily-download.
Another one--http://feeds.feedburner.com/YourClassicalDailyDownload.
The last one--http://www.yourclassical.org/.

I recommend that you not use the last one unless necessary, because the posts of free classical music are mixed in with all kinds of other posts about classical music, etc. and you would have to wade through that stuff to get to the post that you want.

[GtrsRGr8]

Peter Tchaikovsky's piece Piano Trio No. 1 in A minor: III. Finale is free today from YourClassical.

Tchaikovsky's works have been performed by a plethora of artists; I'm sure that this one is no exception. In this rendition, Richard Stamper performs on the violin, Christine Jackson is on the cello, and Vovka Ashkenazy is on the piano,.

As so often is the case, this freebie from YourClassical is taken from a Naxos album (one thing that I've learned since I have been posting free classical pieces is that Naxos is the Big Kahuna in the classical music publishing business, at least in the English-speaking world). The album is Tchaikovsky Piano Trio Op. 50 / Arensky Piano Trio Op. 32. Interested in learning more about the album from which today's free piece comes? If so, point your web browser to this webpage.

To give you some variety in life, I'm going to go ahead and give you the webpage with the direct MP3 download link, before giving you some technical information about the MP3. It is on this webpage, and, not surprisingly, the link which you need to click on is one which says "Direct MP3 download link." Interested in only streaming the piece, or doing that before making the serious (ha) move of actually downloading the piece? There's a place, which is obvious, on the webpage, which will allow you to do that. This rendition of Tchaikovsky's work is 11 minutes, 39 seconds long.

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to listen to the piece before or while making the post, as I like to do. So, I cannot comment on it, personally (my comments about classical music aren't very informative or scintillating anyway).

[GtrsRGr8]

YourClassical is offering us a free download today of a Robert Shumann piece. It is Symphony No. 1 "Spring": II. Larghetto.

Tubemonkey should be interested in this one, especially, since it is performed by the Seattle Symphony Orchestra. In fact, it is part of a series of albums from Naxos called the "Seattle Symphony Collection." The particular album from which this piece is taken is Robert Shumann - Symphony Nos. 1 'Spring' and 2. Gerard Schwarz is credited as the conductor for the entire album, including today's free piece.

Naxos usually has a dedicated webpage for their albums, and that is true with this album, too. The webpage is located here. As usual, too, it has lots of great information about the album and the composer.

Think that you would like to take a listen to the free piece, as I'm doing now as I write? You can stream it by going to this webpage and clicking on the stream bar. If you want to download the piece, just click on the "Direct MP3 download link," located on the same webpage.

This rendition of Shumann's composition runs 8 minutes, 6 seconds long. The composition is generally calm, with some intense moments. For what it's worth, I found it enjoyable and generally becalming. If you choose to stream and/or download it, I hope that you enjoy it.

Check back tomorrow to find out what the final YourClassical free classical piece of the week (M-F) will be!

[GtrsRGr8]

Happy Friday.

Today's free track from YourClassical is one from composer Frederic (to use his Anglicized name) Chopin. The album from which it comes is entitled Fryderyk Chopin - Noctures Volume 1. The album is published by Naxos and is Volume 5 of their series "Complete Piano Music." The album has won at least one award, information concerning which is displayed on the album cover. You may wish to visit this dedicated Naxos webpage for the album to learn more about the album. (Oddly the award was in 1995, but the physical release of the album wasn't until 1999. I don't have any idea how that could have happened--I don't think that there was distribution of digital music yet in 1995, apart from the use of physical media (I'm thinking of CD's in particular). But I could be wrong).

Idil Biret is credited with doing the piano performance. No conductor is mentioned, but I suppose that with a purely piano piece the pianist serves as his own conductor. I dunno. I am so ignorant about classical music, and music in general.

I just got finished listening to the 5 minute, 35 second free piece, Nocturne No. 1, Op. 9. It is completely in piano, as alluded to above. It is a very pleasant piece, in my opinion--there are no extreme high and lows in volume, and the piece has a nice, slow tempo.

Grab the freebie from this webpage. Clicking on "Direct MP3 download link" will cause the piece to automatically download to your default location. You can also stream the piece from that webpage, if for some reason you should want to.

The piece should be up on YourClassical's website until early Monday morning, as they do not make posts on Saturdays and Sundays.

[GtrsRGr8]

Well, just a few days ago, Naxos newsletter subscribers were able to grab a free album of Naxos' choosing. Today they announced their usual second free classical album of the month offer.

Remember that with this offer, you don't have to be a member of anything, be on their mailing list (although you will find out about this second offer of the month that way), or whatever. If you can fog a mirror, you qualify.

Remember that, with this particular promotion, you get three choices of albums, from which you can get one free. Let me tell you your choices of free albums, and then I'll leave you to go exploring on your own. And somewhere along the line you'll have to make the sometimes difficult decision of which one of the three albums that you will select to be your free one.

Okay, here are the three choices. All of them are formatted in the high-quality flac format:
- Rossini: Complete Overtures, Vol. 2
- Rossini: Piano Music, Vol. 2
- Rossini: The Barber of Seville (Highlights)

Notice anything out of the ordinary? Yep, everything's by Rossini. Why? Well, here is Klaus Heymann, of Naxos', explanation:
We're having a belated boxing day here at Naxos, since this month sees the release of our 4-CD boxed set of Rossini's Overtures. The previously released single volumes all received outstanding international acclaim, so we'd like to indulge you in a riot of Rossini this month by offering a free album download of music from this boxed set. Alternatively you can take your pick from some of his eccentric miniatures for piano, or a selection of grander operatic highlights. And we hope your Happy New Year just got a bit happier!

Unfortunately, I can't give you the webpage, with the choices, directly. If you don't get their newsletter (where there are links), you can go to this webpage. Click on the orangish-colored button near the top of the webpage that says, "Download One of This Month's Free Albums." If, for some reason, that doesn't take you to the webpage with the album choices, drill down the webpage whose URL that I gave above to close to the bottom of the page and you should see another orangish-colored box like the one that I mentioned above. Click on it.

About the only other thing that I guess that I should mention is that the offer will be good until the first part of next month, around the time that the next Naxos promo like this comes out.

Don't you appreciate Naxos for giving us these great valuable albums? I certainly do.

[GtrsRGr8]

Wouldn't it be a great way to end the day by getting another great free classical album?

Well, a music publisher called primephonic [sic], one apparently domiciled somewhere across the Pond from us in the States, is offering a free download of a winter compilation of classical works:
With our winter compilation, we present you with an eclectic selection of works that are in one way or another reminiscent of winter.

Among the visual images wintry music can bring to mind are those of ice, snow, introversion, death, journeying and isolation, from Schubert's Winterreise to the late, sombre works of Brahms and Beethoven. Winter in all its beauty is well represented in this Hi-Res primephonic SELECTED album.

What they don't mention is that this album was released just this past Sunday.

There are a host of different artists (performers) who had a part in the production of this album. It would be easy enough to cut-and-paste them into this message, but it would make the message excessively long. For the same reason, I will refrain from listing the 12 or 13 different composers (there are 12 listed, but somehow I ended up with 13 different ones downloaded).

I encourage you to go to this webpage, where you can find oodles and oodles of information about the album. It is from that webpage that you proceed to checkout. I apparently am locked out of going through that process again, so as to tell you exactly what to do in order to checkout. But do make sure to notice, before you move on to the next webpage, that you have a choice of two different formats, both of them of very high quality--WAV and the even better FLAC formats--and be sure to tic the one that you want (I can't imagine a situation where you would choose WAV over FLAC; those who pay for the album would pay extra for FLAC, but both are free for us).

Before I forget it, you will need to use a code on the checkout page to get the free album. It is PPWINTER.

While I am locked out of going to the checkout webpage again, everything is fairly straightforward and glitch-free. Just make sure that you provide all information that the webpage asks for. Some of it doesn't apply to U.S. residents, so make something up just to give some response. If for some reason you have to return to the checkout page, make sure that all of the information that you put earlier is still there--some of it will disappear if you move to the checkout page and then come back.

Now (and I'm still going on memory here), when you get to the download webpage, you will be prompted to install a download manager in order to keep from downloading each file individually. Do yourself a favor and download and use that download manager!

I'm sorry that I don't have an equivalent free album to offer you MobileReaders in the Southern Hemisphere, where it is not winter, but very much summer. ha

Enjoy.

[Manabi]

Originally Posted by GtrsRGr8

Now (and I'm still going on memory here), when you get to the download webpage, you will be prompted to install a download manager in order to keep from downloading each file individually. Do yourself a favor and download and use that download manager!

You don't need to, one of the buttons gives you the option to download a zip file directly instead. It takes a few seconds for it to create the zip file, but it's not too long (maybe 5-10 seconds depending on server load).

I got notice of this freebie from the BBC Music Magazine newsletter, I'm guessing you saw it there too. I don't recall any previous free albums announced from them, but I'm definitely keeping the newsletter in case they send out more.

[GtrsRGr8]

Originally Posted by Manabi

You don't need to, one of the buttons gives you the option to download a zip file directly instead. It takes a few seconds for it to create the zip file, but it's not too long (maybe 5-10 seconds depending on server load).

I got notice of this freebie from the BBC Music Magazine newsletter, I'm guessing you saw it there too. I don't recall any previous free albums announced from them, but I'm definitely keeping the newsletter in case they send out more.

I'm sure that you're right on the first count. I just missed that feature. Too bad, too, especially since I went to the trouble to download each file individually (I'm not sure why, unless I had a bad flashback to the old dialup days when I used a download manager to try to speed things up a little bit. ha).

You're right on the second count, too. I didn't recall seeing any from them before, either. But the first page of the email said that it was an advertisement, so that might have been the difference. If so, I hope that more music publishers do that kind of advertising.

I get a ton of email, lots of it from companies (and some people, like authors) that I hope will send a good deal occasionally. But the volume has gotten ridiculous, and I'm trying now to unsubscribe from one email list for every one that I add.

(I'm speaking to everyone now) BTW--music posts, including classical music posts, are not my exclusive domain! If you see a deal, by all means, post it, even if I traditionally do it and you think that I would have posted it eventually. It will not offend me in the least!

[Manabi]

Originally Posted by GtrsRGr8

I get a ton of email, lots of it from companies (and some people, like authors) that I hope will send a good deal occasionally. But the volume has gotten ridiculous, and I'm trying now to unsubscribe from one email list for every one that I add.

Since I use Gmail, I have set up filters that apply labels to all the incoming mailing list stuff. Then if the subject doesn't indicate a freebie, it just gets marked read and archived without my opening the message. This has really helped me manage the newsletter barrage. I've actually found it easier to go through and select/archive stuff from Gmail on my Android phone, too. I archive a good 30-40 unread newsletters every day.

Some companies are worse about newsletters than others. Bath & Body Works sends me at least one e-mail every single day. They have sales regularly, send coupons regularly and I do want to know about them, but sheeze, that's kind of excessive.

[GtrsRGr8]

Originally Posted by Manabi

Since I use Gmail, I have set up filters that apply labels to all the incoming mailing list stuff. Then if the subject doesn't indicate a freebie, it just gets marked read and archived without my opening the message. This has really helped me manage the newsletter barrage. I've actually found it easier to go through and select/archive stuff from Gmail on my Android phone, too. I archive a good 30-40 unread newsletters every day.

Some companies are worse about newsletters than others. Bath & Body Works sends me at least one e-mail every single day. They have sales regularly, send coupons regularly and I do want to know about them, but sheeze, that's kind of excessive.

Yeah, I am familiar with the tools that Google provides to help a person manage his/her email.

Here's my problem (well, one of them ). There are things that I could do to greatly simply my life, but I can't bring myself to spend the time at the beginning in order to get them set up. Yeah, I need to break myself from that--it's costing me too much time in my life, and increasing the angst.

I wish that there was a feature in Gmail to automatically delete any messages in Chinese. For some reason, about half of all of the spam that I get in both of my two accounts are in Chinese which, of course, I can't read.

I can tell that you a person who has all of her ducks in a row in life.

[Manabi]

Originally Posted by GtrsRGr8

Here's my problem (well, one of them ). There are things that I could do to greatly simply my life, but I can't bring myself to spend the time at the beginning in order to get them set up. Yeah, I need to break myself from that--it's costing me too much time in my life, and increasing the angst.

The filters require very little time. 99% of the time just clicking on the drop down menu next to the reply arrow, selecting "Filter messages like this" will fill in a from/etc. that is best to filter by. Click "create filter with this search" to go to next screen, choose the "New label" option under "Apply the label" drop-down and name it. Check the box next to the "Create filter" button before clicking it and it'll apply the label to all the old e-mails too. I usually also check the "Never send it to Spam" box too. And done, it'll get them in the future unless they changes the from address. It takes significantly longer to write the directions than to actually do it. Probably around five seconds max to create a filter this way.

I understand the lack of desire/motivation to invest the time setting it up, but you can easily do this when you open one to read. Just do one or two a day and after a while you'll have them all. On my main account I have hundreds of labels and at least a hundred filters, but I did this over years so I never spent any large chunks of time creating them.

Originally Posted by GtrsRGr8

I can tell that you a person who has all of her ducks in a row in life.

Hah, I'm glad I give that impression but I have serious depression and health problems (which also exacerbate the depression) so I have zero motivation nowadays. Took me four days to get myself to clean my glasses this week.