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

[GtrsRGr8]

ADDENDUM 2: I keep checking, and keep getting the same results (what is that quote, supposedly from Albert Einstein . . . the definition of "insanity" is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. ha). Here's something interesting, though: I played the song on my Spotify acccount. The piece skipped, for about 1 second, after running about 10 seconds, but then the music resumed.

I guess that I could email Classical-music.com, but I keep thinking that someone else will do it, and I won't have to . . . . Everyone else is probably thinking the same thing, too. ha


ADDENDUM: It is a little past 6:30 p.m. Monday. One MP3 player showed that the free piece was supposed to be 3 minutes, 50 seconds in length. However, the music and/or player quit after playing about 10 seconds. Thinking that it might be an issue with my MP3 player, I tried another one. Same problem. I also deleted the file, and re-downloaded the piece. Again, no difference. It seems like it must be a problem on the Classical-music.com end, although I could be wrong. If you've got some contrary information, please share it. Otherwise, I will keep checking to see if the problem has been corrected. If/when it is, I'll add another addendum. This kind of situation is exactly the reason that I listen to every free piece before posting it.


Sometime in the last 18 hours or so (when I last checked), Classical-music also posted its most recent weekly (really weekly!) free music download.

The free download is Fenella Humphreys plays the Largo from JS Bach's Sonata in C major. The blurb, from Classical-music.com:
This week's free download is the Largo from JS Bach's Violin Sonata for in C major, performed by Fenella Humphreys. The track comes from Humphrey's latest album on the Champs Hill label, Bach to the Future, Vol 2 which was named Instrumental Choice in the January issue of BBC Music Magazine.
'Humphreys yields nothing to the finest recordings in her accuracy and passion,' writes Martin Cotton, 'the recording captures the full range of her tone in a rich but not over-resonant acoustic.'

It is formatted in MP3.

That's about all that I'll say about the album or piece, because that's about all that Classical-music.com says about it!

But, to download the piece, point your web browser to this Classical-music.com webpage. If you've signed up, logged in, and all of those things, you should see a bright red "Download Now" button superimposed over the thumbnail of the album from which the free piece comes. Click on it. That should cause the piece to start downloading to your default drive or memory for such things.

Enjoy this free piece from one of the true masters of classical music!

[GtrsRGr8]

I see where eMusic is offering a free 14-day trial in which you can get up to 25 free songs.

Before I go any further, I need to say that I'm almost certain that eMusic deals exclusively with indie music or new artists with new music (for the sake of brevity, I'm just going to use the word "indie."). Now, that's not necessarily bad--I've heard a few indies that I thought were quite good--I think that the artists are definitely up-and-comers, headed for stardom or at least to have a large, solid following. The problem with indies is, to me, that you have to listen to a lot of duds before you come up with a really good song (I'm trying to think of an apt analogy, but one escapes me at this moment).

The reason that I know that is that eMusic does, or at least used to, offer a free indie or "new music" piece everyday. I listened to almost every one. However, I got disgusted with eMusic quite some time back because they had an excessive amount of glitches of different kinds. I cut them loose, as far as posting their daily free downloads was concerned, but continued to check them for myself; I downloaded a lot of them--many of them just marginally enjoyable but ones that I thought might "grow on me" over time. The reason that I suggested that eMusic "at least used to offer a free indie piece everyday" is that they apparently haven't posted one in the last two or three days.

Now, back to the free trial offer and other facts about their plans. Plans start at $6.49, following your 14-day free trial. With each plan level, you get a certain number of free pieces of music. You can buy more for only 49 cents each. They claim that their prices end up being "up to" 50% off iTunes, Google Play, or Amazon. EMusic claims a catalog of over 23 million songs.

Here's something that could be either a positive or a negative, or a little of both. All of your music will be stored in the cloud, and eMusic says that the cloud storage is free and unlimited. I don't suppose that you can put the recipes from your aunt Mary and your spreadsheets from work in this cloud, or to use it to back up your 500 gb computer hard drive, but only to store the music that you've gotten from eMusic.

Frankly, this is not of interest to me. Mainly because I want to hear music that has already become popular; I don't want to hear a bunch of indies, when most of them aren't going to be any good. But that's just me. The MobileReader bunch is an eclectic crowd, and I post this in case there are people who do not feel the way that I do about indie music, and so this company's offers might be of interest to you.

eMusic.com.

[GtrsRGr8]

Today's YourClassical freebie is Camille Saint-Saens - Piano Concerto No. 2: III. Presto.

Once again, a Naxos album is the source of the free piece, Saint-Saens - Piano Concertos Nos. 1 and 2 - Allegro appassionato. The music on this album is performed by Romain Descharmes (piano) and Malmo Symphony Orchestra, and is directed by Marc Soustrot.

This rendition of the piece is 7 minutes, 10 seconds long.

As usual, when Naxos is the source of a free piece, YourClassical also provides a dedicated webpage for the album. Point your browser to this webpage if you're interested in learning more about the album.

The dedicated YourClassical webpage for the free piece gives you two ways to listen to the piece. If you think that you might want to give it a quick listen, a stream bar on that webpage will allow you to do that. If you think that you want to download the free MP3, the thing to do is to click on the "Direct MP3 download link" on the same webpage, and it will automatically download to your default place on your default drive or memory chip.

I still struggle mightily with vocabulary to express how a classical piece sounds to me. But here's my effort for this one. The piano is, of course, in the piece, is strong, but is not overpowering. The piece is a busy one, with all kinds of things going on with the instruments of the orchestra, at a rapid pace. It sounds just fine.

[GtrsRGr8]

Moved to Audiobooks. See the following two posts. Thanks, library addict.

[library addict]

Originally Posted by GtrsRGr8

This is not my thang, so I don't know anything more about it than what I'm putting down here. I'm even assuming that this is some video and not an audiobook, but I'm really not sure (the word "reel" seems to indicated that the former is correct). I'm going to depend on fellow MobileReaders to add additional information, and possibly even correct me, if needed.

Looks like it is an audio book. The Missing Reel is the name of the book.

This offer lets you download David Selby's reading of Dark Shadows - The Missing Reel for free, from Big Finish's 2016 release Dark Shadows - Echoes of the Past.

The Missing Reel by Ian Farrington

Los Angeles, 1958. The world is changing – but then again, it always does. Only people with short lives assume things stay the same. When you’re immortal like Quentin Collins, you realize that it all moves at a lightning pace...

[GtrsRGr8]

Originally Posted by library addict

Looks like it is an audio book. The Missing Reel is the name of the book.

Thanks. I'm moving it to Audiobooks, then.

[GtrsRGr8]

Richard Wagner - Symphony In C: III> Allegro Assai. That's today's free piece from YourClassical. As usual, the piece is taken from a much larger work--an album, in fact. Naxos, as is true most of the time, publishes the album from which this YourClassical free piece is taken. The album is called Wagner - Symphony in C major - Symphony in E major (fragment).

Credits, as shown on the cover of the album, are MDR Leipzig Radio Symphony Orchestra and Jun Markl. Markl's part is not stated; however, I have learned, from making all of the classical music posts that I have, that when a name appears by itself on an album cover, it is the conductor. The dedicated webpage for the Naxos album confirms that Markl is the conductor.

Now to focus on the piece that we get free . . . . it is formatted in MP3. This rendition of Wagner's work is 6 minutes, 33 seconds long. There is a stream bar on YourClassical's dedicated webpage for the free piece, if you just want to listen to it. If you wish to download it, on the same webpage there is a "Direct MP3 download link" which you can use to have it "for keeps."

The piece is nice--lively and upbeat.

Many of you may not be aware that Wagner was a favorite--maybe the favorite composer--of Adolf Hitler. Supposedly, in Wagner's operas, he espoused some Nazi-like ideas, including German nationalism and anti-Semitism. Perhaps that's what attracted Hitler to him; I don't know. At any rate, I think that it is a shame that Wagner's name, largely through no fault of his own, will forever be connected with Adolph Hitler's. There is quite a bit about these things on the web should you wish to delve into the subject more.

[Dr. Drib]

Spek indicates that this is a somewhat respectable 320kHz-18bit, which is not too bad for an mp3 audio file.

Of course, I would much rather prefer a FLAC 96kHz-24bit (minimum), or even a DSD64-DSF hi-res file - BUT....the mp3 IS free, after all.

Thank you!

[GtrsRGr8]

Originally Posted by Dr. Drib

Spek indicates that this is a somewhat respectable 320kHz-18bit, which is not too bad for an mp3 audio file.

Of course, I would much rather prefer a FLAC 96kHz-24bit (minimum), or even a DSD64-DSF hi-res file - BUT....the mp3 IS free, after all.

Thank you!

Like a great philosopher once (well, many times, actually) said, "you don't always get what you want." (Mick Jagger, Rolling Stones)

Glad you can use it, and thanks for the feedback.

[GtrsRGr8]

Instead of putting another addendum to post #1381, which someone could easily miss, I'll just put the news here.

Apparently, someone fixed the problem with Classical-music.com's freebie of the week, which was posted on post #1381. I re-downloaded the freebie from their download page, and it played in its entirety, as far as I can tell. It's odd, however, that there was a skip on Spotify at the exact spot that the music had quit on Classical-music.com's original file. I still can't explain that.

One thing that I noticed that is different, however. Classical-music.com has renamed the file completely, from "Sonata No 3 in C Major BWV 1005 Largo.mp3" to "11 Largo.mp3". Someone who knows more about these kinds of things (which . . . uh . . . would be anyone else but me) can explain why. But if you try playing the original downloaded file, it stands to reason that you will have the same problem as you had before. I don't see it being essential to rename the file, so long as someone downloaded the piece again, and used that file. But, maybe just to avoid any more issues, they thought it best just to change the file name. I dunno.

So, the long and short of it is--start the process over at http://www.classical-music.com/free-...sonata-c-major. That means clicking on the red "download" button, and all of that. The good file of the song should download automatically and should be labelled, "11 Largo.mp3".

You've still got till at least Sunday (EST) to download the file.

Let me know if you have any problems.

BTW--the piece is very nice. It's slow-paced, and soft. The violin is subdued enough that it's enjoyable, even to me. I'm glad that someone fixed it for us.

[GtrsRGr8]

Mami Shikimori is credited prominently as pianist on the cover of the Naxos album from which today's free YourClassical is taken. There is no one else credited as an artist. I'm not the brightest bulb in the chandelier, but I know that that is a hint that the album is going to be entirely of piano works. And that that will include our free piece from the album.

Indeed, our free piece, Peter Tchaikovsky - Valse Caprice in D (Major - Op 4), is entirely in piano. It formatted in MP3 and runs 9 minutes, 8 seconds on this album.

Find out much more about the whole album here, on Naxos' dedicated webpage for the album.

Interested in streaming or downloading the free piece? Well, you can do either, or both, from this YourClassical dedicated webpage for the free piece. The stream bar will be obvious; the link to download the piece is labeled "Direct MP3 download link."

I am not a fan of piano (piano playing classical works)--give me a traditional orchestra, with strings like the cello, woodwinds, and percussion instruments! So it is hard for me to comment on the piece. I can say that without a doubt, however, that Ms. Shikimori does a masterful job of playing the piano.

This is the YourClassical post for Thursday. Tomorrow's will be the last one for the Monday-Friday week.

[Dr. Drib]

Got each one from both posts above mine.

Thank you!

[GtrsRGr8]

Thanks to Dr. Drib for the feedback, letting me know that he grabbed the offer in my two most recent music posts. Knowing that someone took advantage of a post is the biggest encouragement that I could receive to keep on posting!

There's another new one for today's YourClassical free download offer . . . . I don't mean the music, it's always different. I mean a new composer.

At least, I don't remember posting a Leopold Kozeluch piece before. I'm anxious to listen to all of the free 3 minute, 16 second piece, which is Symphony In C: IV. Presto Con Fuoco. I've got it playing right now, and I'll be able to tell you in just a few minutes what I think about it.

This rendition of Kozeluch's piece is performed by the Czech Chamber Philharmonic Orchestra Pardubice. Marek Stilec is the conductor. Unfortunately, for the true audiophile among us, the free piece is formatted in MP3, as usual. It comes from a Naxos album entitled Leopold Kozeluch - Symphonies - 1 - Czech Masters in Vienna.

Find out more about the entire album, here, including, perhaps, more about this particular piece that we can get free today. That webpage is the dedicated Naxos webpage for the album. If you think that you want to stream the piece or to download it, navigate to this webpage. The download link is the one on that webpage which, not surprisingly, says, "Direct MP3 download."

Again, I'm classical musically-challenged, so it's hard to give a very helpful description of any classical piece. However, this one is of a traditional orchestra. The music is lively, with fairly high high's and fairly low low's. I think that it resembles Mozart pieces that I've heard. It's a definite "keeper."

You've got the rest of the weekend to download this piece for free--YourClassical does not give out free pieces on Saturdays or Sundays.

[Dr. Drib]

Thank you VERY much, GtrsRGr8, for your work on searching out music downloads and for the interesting research and thoughtful posts you make.

I don't download every item, of course, but I do read through all the items you post, and then go to the site to see if it might be something I wish to download and add to my collection.

Again, thank you so much for your dedication to bringing this information to Mobileread's members and to myself, as well.

[pdops]

Originally Posted by Dr. Drib

Again, thank you so much for your dedication to bringing this information to Mobileread's members and to myself, as well.

Ditto from me. I've built up a pretty good library of classical music from your posts