Treasure trove of historic MP3 downloads

The Finnish national broadcaster YLE Radio 1 has the most extraordinary treasure trove of historic MP3 downloads on their website. I can't even list the riches available, but the artists include Dinu Lipatti, Pablo Casals, Alfred Cortot, Kirsten Flagstad , Yehudi Menuhin, Arturo Toscanini, and many, many more. There are lots of downloads for each artist, and the technical quality is very good. The whole site is in Finnish, but navigation is intuitive. Just select the artist from the left hand side list, then select the Real Audio or MP3 hyperlink under the composition. Each download has a spoken introduction of around 20 seconds in Finnish, but don't let that put you off.

This is an extraordinary discovery. I am listening to Toscanini conducting the adagio molto e cantabile from Beethoven's 9th as I write - beautiful. Here is the link, and many thanks to reader Walt Santner for the heads-up.

Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Report broken links, missing images and other errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk
If you enjoyed this post take An Overgrown Path to Discovered - the online Arnold Schoenberg jukebox

Comments

Anonymous said…
Thanks for the heads-up!

I am a retired radio broadcaster, living in New Jersey, (USA) who enjoys finding, downloading legal free good music on the net and listening to it.

Method:

I use a LYCOS based Swedish search engine:

http://www.spray.se/

Enter a composer's last name in lower case in the sok box.

For example,

mozart

Click on the musik tab.
click on the yellow sok tab.

page one
Toppen 10 Musik av 78.618

k01 (mozart).mp3
Format: mp3 | Speltid: 666 sec | Kvalitet: 128 bit/sample
Musik: k01 (mozart).mp3 *
Sajt: pelleas-artists.com**

*right click to save selection
**Click on sajt address to visit site

To narrow the search add mp3
look for mp3, length at least 2 or more minutes.

I try not to download anything less than 56 kpbs.
Beware of the midi files!
check the links on site if there is a search box use mp3
often I find best music in later pages.
Of course many links don't work.
return to page one to start new search.

Best, Walt Santner
6:45 am
Pliable said…
From Hughsung.com

This is thanks to that fantastic classical music blog, On An Overgrown Path - Finnish radio station YLE Radio 1 has an incredible listing of historical recordings available for free listening - i'm listening to Primrose right now playing a Boccherini Sonata in A major. Other artists' recordings listed include Sarasate (yes, it looks - and sounds like - Sarasate playing his own stuff!), Kreisler, Cortot, Landowska, Casals, Jussi Björling (one of my all-time favorite tenors)...the list goes on and on and on! Looks like i will be spending a LOT of time at this site! Everything is in Finnish, but the layout is pretty easy to intuit, with the composers listed along the left column - not quite sure how to find the overall listing of artists, but part of the fun is in the exploring, no?
Recordings appear to be available as both MP3's and RealAudio media.
This is absolutely must-listen stuff for the serious classical music lover and student - and yes, for many of us in the professional field who always bobbed our heads when we promised our professors that we would run over to the library to listen to this or that recording...uh, making the same promises 6 or 7 times...who, me?
9:48 pm
Rod Warner said…
just bounced on to this via hughsung - looks like some interesting stuff... thanks
12:52 am
Anonymous said…
thanks so much... spreading this through spain too ;)
10:44 am
calcuttaliterati said…
I knew about this site but still credit goes to you for letting others know about it. A diamond treasure indeed for classical music lovers.
3:19 pm
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