Music

Top Five Free Classical Music download sites. 

BEATLES

http://youtube.com/watch?v=0pGOFX1D_jg Love Me Do. ] Audio only.

BEETHOVEN

Complete quartets by the Hungarian Quartet (no ads) and Quartets 1 and 2 and 5(with members all telling us about it, as classical performers always should do), opus59-1 , opus 59-2(starts with two chords), opus 59-3(starts with lots of chords), Quartet 12 and 14 opus 131, and 15(Lydian mode, slow start) and 16 . Symphonies One with Bernstein and Seven with Karajan . The Kreutzer Sonata.

BOCCHERINI

Complete Cello Concertos

PETER CORNELIUS

1859. Ein Ton (One Tone) in German and English . Sheet music (free) <a href="http://wnload-sheet-music.php?pdf=2372# "> here. </a> (Thanks, Professor David Hirshleifer, for telling me of this.) The English is much better--- extraordinary and moving. I can't remember ever hearing such a striking improvement on the standard rendition of a piece of classical music. And it's surprising to find the English better than the original which is, to be frank, boring and mediocre when a soprano sings it as an art song. I wonder what Germans would think? There is [hundredyearslate.wordpress.com/?s=nelligan a webpage]at HundredYearsLate on this song.

David Nelligan did that English recording in 2013. I am very frustrated. He is a musical genius and a marketing cretin. His name is not listed at the you-tube site, though if you read quickly you can see it in small font on the video as the music plays. I couldn't find him on Google to find out about him and what other good work he may have done. He's made himself close to a "mute inglorious Milton". I hate it when people do that, often from a modesty which is admirable in some ways but really selfish because it means the rest of us don't get to benefit from their talent. The HundredYearsLate site, which has just a few entries, from around 2014, is his, but his name isn't in the About section or on the Ein Ton webpage I link to--- you have to really search the site to find him mention his name somewhere.

I'll write to him, and see if he likes my idea for another rendition. I'd like to hear it in his style--- with the piano loud and not pretty, and a drone in the background, and processed voice--- but in German. The words are good, but they are about anguish over a lost love, so having a pretty, highly controlled, soprano voice just kills the song. Nelligan gets it. You need a bit of honky tonk feel, real pain, just barely under control, for both piano and voice. The voice only has one note, but it needs lots of emotion, the impression that the singer might collapse before it's done and doesn't care if he sounds good or not.

I was just listening to Lotte Lehmann singing "Ein Ton" and found myself whistling it afterwards.

    Whistling that song is kind of stupid. 

But I could hear the piano in my mind.

DELIBES

Barbier did not write the words for the Flower Duet in Delibes's Lakme . The Flower Duet is as good music as Offenbach's Barcarolle, but the words are nondescript.

DVORAK

">Jacqueline du Pré , Dvořák Cello Concerto.

EBERL, ANTON

Symphony in E-flat major, Op.33 (1803) and Symphony in D-minor, Op.34 (1804) ] and Violin Sonata op. 50 (recommended by Prof. Timothy Jackson)

ELGAR

Enigma Variations.

ELLA FITZGERALD

Various.

Hasse, Johann Adolf

Artaserse Sinfonia (1760).

Mozart

• Early string quartets, no ads.

MOLTER

• Complete cantatas. After reading about Jack's "molter vivace" joke in The Far Side of the World. Molter really is good!

Nelson, David(Moe)

Lundi Gras New Orleans style jazz. Moe is the bass player. 

OFFENBACH

I didn't remember that the Barcarolle in Tales of Hoffmann was a duet. Why does it bring tears to my eyes? I can't even make out the words. I did look up the words just now:

Belle nuit, ô nuit d’amour Souris à nos ivresses Nuit plus douce que le jour Ô,belle nuit d’amour! Le temps fuit et sans retour Emporte nos tendresses Loin de cet heureux séjour Le temps fuit sans retour Zéphyrs embrasés Versez-nous vos caresses Zéphyrs embrasés Donnez-nous vos baisers! Vos baisers! Vos baisers! Ah! Belle nuit, ô, nuit d’amour Souris à nos ivresses Nuit plus douce que le jour, Ô, belle nuit d’amour! Ah! souris à nos ivresses! Nuit d’amour, ô, nuit d’amour!

They really are quite good. [en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jules_Barbier Jules Barbier.] Maybe it got through my subconscious, since I can understand the French in text if not in song.

PRESLEY, Elvis

You Ain't Nothing But a Hound Dog. Audio only.

Rameau

Overture to Zais, a weird and wonderful piece of music.

Ries, Ferdinand

Cello sonatas

SCHUBERT

Trout quintet, Wigmore Hall.

SCHUMANN

Symphony 1 and 2.

SOUSA

Complete marches.STRAUSS. Die Fliedermaus  , German.

Steffan, Joseph

A piece

Steibelt

One piece and piano works.

Harp Concerto

This cd of Steibelt's concertos and like it a lot: https://www.amazon.com/Steibelt-Classical-Piano-Concertos-Vol/dp/B016VKBJYS/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=steibelt&qid=1631494850&s=music&sr=1-1

John STRAUSS

Die Fleidermaus, with English subtitles.

Richard STRAUSS

Does the timpani playerin Also Sprach really look like me as a young man?

Vinci

Four-minute aria in the Artaserces opera, and the hour-long first act. Is it right to watch a castrato part, even if nowadays not played by a castrato? Yes, I think, though it would not if it were a real castrato, because it would be to encourage mutilation. This recording has countertenor Philippe Jaroussky

WAGNER

• Dutchman with score.
• Rheingold, China;
• Rienzi. Audio only
• Siegfried, audio plus score. Bad link-- I need a new link here.
• Gotterdammerung, no ads?

WOLFFL, JOSEPH

Piano Concerto No.1 in G major, Op.20 (recommended by Prof. Timothy Jackson)

ANONYMOUS

The Le Boudin, the Sausage Song of the Foreign Legion that insults the Belgians ] . They're not politically correct. A more polished version, probably sung by professionals, and with subtitles is here.