Download bargains

[Dave2002]

I noted a hint of a recommendation for Janson's Mahler 2 as a download from emusic on another thread - http://www.emusic.com/album/Mariss-J.../12371223.html . It certainly seems a reasonable buy - considerably cheaper than the CD - which is sometimes not the case.

Are there any other particularly good download bargains which others have noticed?

[PJPJ]

I'd rather have the SACD (with its extra DVD live performance)....

[Dave2002]

Agreed, but it costs a lot more than £2.10. I'd rather have a Tesla Roadster than a G-Wiz (I have neither).

At Presto the SACDs are over £20 - http://www.prestoclassical.co.uk/r/RCO%2BLive/RCO10102

There are perhaps some people who would still prefer a download for the convenience etc., and in some cases (not the emusic ones currently) downloads are better quality, though I don't know of any surround sound downloads.

[Dave2002]

PS: Not all download sites are equal. I have a Napster account and thought I'd try the Janson's Mahler 2nd there. They have it, but clicking on the Buy option gives a message that it's at the "Album Rate" - not the per track rate, so would use up all my remaining track allowance - notionally worth over £7. I'll pick it up from emusic in due course.

[mathias broucek]

I tend to use downloads where they are cheap and 1) sound quality isn't an issue (e.g. the recent Furtwangler RIAS recordings) or 2) I have lots of recordings of a piece and may therefore only listen once or twice (e.g. the recent Maazel Bruckner cycle).

Gunter Wand's BPO Bruckner is usually dead cheap on Amazon (89p per track) and so is Tilson-Thomas's App Spring (89p).

[ostuni]

Kubelik's live Mahler series on Audite has some good bargains at Amazon: M8 is £2.37, M6 is 2.76. Performances tend to be more characterful than the well known DG studio set. Plenty of bargains from 1950s Bayreuth Wagner performances. Krauss's 1953 Ring is 7.98; Knappertsbusch's 51 Parsifal is 3.16. Mödl's Kundry is quite remarkable on the latter, but there are a few slips in the transfers in Act 3 (a few seconds clipped of the beginnings of some tracks) - Acts 1&2 are fine, though.

[rubbernecker]

Here is a link to my previous post on some Amazon bargains I have found :

http://www.for3.org/forums/showthread.php?1061-Bargains&p=26799#post26799

[mathias broucek]

"there are a few slips in the transfers"

With so many labels churning out out-of-copyright (>50 years' old) material, it's worth noting that some labels do it better than others!

Among the really cheap sites, Classical Music Mobile is pretty good and just €1.00 per work (albeit a symphony is a single track) - I was well impressed with their Hollywood Quartet Schubert Quintet.

Obviously more upmarket labels like Pristine and Naxos (Naxos Historical Archive) do good transfers.

[Dave2002]

Mathias

Thanks for reminding us of http://www.classicalmusicmobile.com/catalog/index.php

I've not actually tried it yet, but assuming the recordings and transfers are bearable, there's some really good stuff there. I think I'll explore later this week.

[mathias broucek]

Dave - do try a work or two before you download lots, but I was pretty encouraged by their transfer of the Reiner Concerto for Orchestra and the Hollywood doing Schubert and Schoenberg. The Wagner is so cheap it's almost rude NOT to buy!

[Dave2002]

Mathias

A couple beamed up/down successfully! Now listening to Mravinsky in Glazunov 4 (quite earthy - perhaps not as polished as some other orchestras in some ways - though actually quite delicate woodwind playing at times, and sounds quite a small orchestra !!! though it might just be that the microphones were close to one or two players - the strings sound like just a few players - interesting style nevertheless - the clarinet manages to sound like an accordion at times!), and following your tip I also DLd the Hollywood Schubert.

The DL process seemed to hang in Firefox, but I think I can kick it back into life. First time users need to know that you "only" get 5 days to download, and that (for some reason) you can download 3 times - but it does say on the site that if you have problems they will help.

I have found that sometimes switching browsers can help. Recently I tried to DL from Napster, and it looked as though in one browser (Firefox?) I couldn't download, and had used up some of my allowance, but I switched (Safari? Could have been vice-versa!) and was able to download from there. I guess this is something to do with cookies, so it's worth a try if you find you get stuck on something you think you've paid for.

Looks like Fricsay's Magic Flute has just come down, so only Hartmann's 6th and Korngold's Die Tote Stadt to go. I shall copy these off ASAP so hope I don't need to worry about the extra downloads. Hartmann down OK now.

[mathias broucek]

The Tote Stadt tragically doesn't have the offstage chorus in the big baritone aria.....

I'll never forget hearing that for the first time. I thought I'd imagined it and had to rewind to check!

[Dave2002]

Dave - do try a work or two before you download lots, but I was pretty encouraged by their transfer of the Reiner Concerto for Orchestra and the Hollywood doing Schubert and Schoenberg. The Wagner is so cheap it's almost rude NOT to buy!

The stereo ones do seem better. I've not listened on anything good yet, so haven't been able to assess the quality versus comparable LPs or CDs. At the prices, most of the Mozart operas are a good buy, so I've now purchased yet more copies of those. I'll reword your sentence - "The Mozart operas are so cheap it's almost rude NOT to buy!" They can be stuck on one or two CDs for playing in my car. I still feel I prefer Mozart to Wagner.

There are some even greater bargains - FREE!

1. Recordings from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum - fairly new recordings, usually live. See their archive - http://www.gardnermuseum.org/music/library.asp
2. Recordings from the European Archive - http://www.europarchive.org/ - but probably older recordings - like CMM, and probably transferred from LPs.
3. http://themusicparlour.blogspot.com/ This site used to have transfers from older LPs - some good. There seem to be some possibly newer recordings now, and there may be some copyright issues on some transfers.
4. Rolf den Otter produces recordings of LPs and has built up a bit of a collection - for examples see - http://docent.cmd.hro.nl/otter/

There are others who are or have transferred recordings from LPs and some which are publicly available.

[Don Petter]

4. Rolf den Otter produces recordings of LPs and has built up a bit of a collection - for examples see - http://docent.cmd.hro.nl/otter/

There are others who are or have transferred recordings from LPs and some which are publicly available.

Rolf hasn't updated his site for many months now, though you can still download the Jensen Nielsen First Symphony which is there. He seems to be involved with the http://www.europarchive.org site which you also mentioned.

There are quite a few other free sites around, mainly blogs. A good way to browse what is available is to start at a site like http://randomclassics.blogspot.com/ which, as many of them have, has a series of links to other similar sites. You can then leap around a whole network of offerings from both LPs and 78s. (I have about twenty sites in my Favourites to keep tabs on!)

[mathias broucek]

Dutch Radio 4 has some astonishing free downloads from the RCO - Bernstein's Mahler 1, Haitink's Bruckner 8, Giulini's Dvorak 8 etc.