Downloads Section

[Richard Moss]

Soon after I was introduced to the delights of this web-site, I came across downloads of (or links to) most enjoyable works by Bortkiewicz (VC & CC) and Castro (PC). 

In setting up the 'downloads' section, is it possible to gather up all the (legit) downloads/links that may be lurking elsewhere in the various discussion threads.  As a 'new boy' I don't know of any others but I'm sure the 'senior' members will be well aware of what has gone before.

These downloads are such an enjoyable source of new material it would be a shame for earlier stuff to remain unseen (or should that be unheard!) because we don;t know its even there.

Here's hoping!

Richard

[Alan Howe]

There's nothing to stop members trawling the threads for links and telling us where they are...

[shamokin88]

A general query from Shamokin88. I am quite happy to download pieces from my collection as I have been, Clapp, Huffman, Zafred, Stanford, Read, Knipper and so forth, thinking that here is some music that needs to be heard. I'm using my own judgment and riding my own hobby horse. But if there are desperate requests I might be able to help. I have very little vocal or choral music. Otherwise I will just carry on.

[lechner1110]

  I'm very happy that I met this group members.
  I met a lot of treasure musics from this group.
  Thanks a lot everyone, and I will introduce world broadcast recordings as best as I can.


  Best

  A.S

[TerraEpon]

I can't help keep wondering where people get these huge swaths of music. I know a lot of them are LP transfers, but the radio stuff...

More importantly, I'm really curious why so many have such strange issues? A *lot* of them have the music partly or completely on one side of the stereo spectrum, and many of them have absolutely terrible skips, etc.

[shamokin88]

Hello to Terra Epon and others who share his concerns.

I started collecting in the 1950s - I'm seventy now - and the first tapes I ever made date from about 1953, with a microphone in front of my radio and the hope - sometimes fulfilled and sometimes not - that my dog would not bark. About thirty years ago a Philadelphia collector died and I spent lots of time untangling myself from miles and miles of his Scotch 111 acetate-based tapes and oxide-shedding Ampex reels, playing them back on substandard equipment, my finger steadying the tape in its passage over the head. I expect I am the source - or the cause - of many recordings that sound stronger in one channel than the other. I'll twiddle knobs to improve matters as I can. But I suppose that by now I can't hear the difference as sharply as do others.

The gaps in recordings off the internet I confess I do not understand - say an eight-second break in the middle of a download from Swedish Radio. I wish I knew.

As for radio broadcasts I sought them out wherever I could find them, mostly from older collectors who had access to them, from local radio stations, publishers - any source. A lot of institutions were less picky than they have become, fearful as they are now of copyright issues. And some composers themselves kindly made copies for me or loaned me their originals. I think these things are much harder to come by than they once were and for me a broadcast of William Schuman's withdrawn second symphony, made the year before I was born, is at the core of my interests.

I hope anyone who is interested will find virtues in them, as Cromwell said to the artist about to paint his portrait "warts and all."

Best from Shamokin88 

[Arbuckle]

My LP collection also contains many things I could only find second hand (or 3rd or 4th?) in not too great shape, but I wanted to hear the music anyway and bought them. I don't have the technology to "clean them up" or I would, in the meantime I just want to share what I have, and I greatly appreciate everything that has been shared because, even if the sound isn't perfect I can get an idea of the music, and that's the whole idea, at least for me, and I hope for others as well. And I would love to hear every scratchy old archival reel-to-reel, used LP, 78, acetate, mono, stereo, (questionable) whatever that lies hidden away on someone's shelf. I kind of hope that some of the younger collectors on here will have an easier time of finding those "unfindables" than most of us who've been at it awhile have had. I could never have imagined how nice it is now to find new things with the internet as I scrimped and saved and haunted used record stores and garage sales hoping for things I assumed I would never, ever hear.  I'm not ashamed to be greedy in this case, so everybody, keep up the good work! and Thanks a million for your efforts.

[Dundonnell]

I agree that it can be frustrating to download a particular piece of music which someone has made available from their personal archives and then listen to a recording which is disfigured by 'cracks' and 'pops' and other distortions.....

But it has to be remembered that most of this music is completely unavailable from any other source. We are incredibly fortunate to be getting access to it.

I am a relatively recent member of this forum. I cannot sufficiently convey in words the utter astonishment, amazement and sheer joy that overwhelmed me when I started to discover just what was available here for download.

I have loved late 19th and 20th century orchestral and choral music for 50 years. I am an avid collector of such music, particularly British, American and Scandinvavian. I have long maintained lists of all the 'missing symphonies' etc which remained unrecorded. I never dreamt that so much would simply 'appear' on one single day.

If I and others now have such access then I can happily put up with sound quality which is not of the best in order to actually hear these works at last..

Fortunately  my collection of tapes appears to have survived 30 years in a dusty attic and the sound quality-in the main-remains quite remarkable. In some pieces there is the odd distortion because the sound level wasn't set quite right......but then I was taping from the radio while at the same time teaching in a school

I am steadily working through my tapes checking the sound and have not yet found a work which cannot be shared.

24 British symphonies, 18 British concertos at present unavailable are waiting to be unleashed

[Amphissa]

More importantly, I'm really curious why so many have such strange issues? A *lot* of them have the music partly or completely on one side of the stereo spectrum, and many of them have absolutely terrible skips, etc.

I'd be delighted to have perfect recordings. Please post them. Thanks.

[TerraEpon]

Well I was mostly curious about the stereo thing because it's very weird, and I'm wondering what causes it.

[Sydney Grew]

. . . I am a relatively recent member of this forum. I cannot sufficiently convey in words the utter astonishment, amazement and sheer joy that overwhelmed me when I started to discover just what was available here for download.

I have loved late 19th and 20th century orchestral and choral music for 50 years. I am an avid collector of such music,  . . .

Also a relatively recent member here, I have a couple of questions about points that are still not entirely clear:

1) "It is important that you state in your posts the source of the recording you are offering for download - radio broadcast, LP etc. A recording must not have appeared on CD, even on a CD which is now unavailable or which was published by a now-defunct label. Remember, if there is any doubt about it being a current commercial recording, or a broadcast of a commercial recording, or having once been available on CD, it will not be approved by the moderators."

This appears to mean that if, for example, Mervyn Murgatroyd's ninth symphony is available on CD as performed by orchestra ABC, and I have a recording of the same work taken from a broadcast of a live performance by orchestra XYZ, it would be permissible for me to post it - even though a performance by others is available on CD.

In other words, the decision to post or not relates to particular recordings of particular performances, not (as I until now have assumed) to particular works. Am I right on that point?

2) The second question concerns the most favoured musical period. The most popular works here seem to range from 1860 to 1975, with a smattering of later ones. I find many passing references to "Raff", but I can't find any specific rule or statement stipulating the acceptable musical era. How about the many unsung contemporaries of Beethoven, or contemporaries of Purcell, or even contemporaries of ourselves? Would they be welcomed, or would it be better to stick to 1860-1975?

[Dundonnell]

I shall answer your first point. The second should better be addressed by the administrators.

The answer to your first question is that your previous assumption was wrong. It is perfectly permissable to upload a performance of a piece taken from a radio recording (or from an LP which has never been converted to cd) if that performance has not been issued on cd currently or in the past.

[jerfilm]

I'm certainly not an administrator but I will throw in my two cents/pence, euros----- worth.  As I recall, the forum is dedicated to the unsung composers of the Romantic and late Romantic eras.  In recent months, it seems to have evolved into a very, VERY late Romantic era. 

But from my personal viewpoint, if you have works from the 19th/early 20th century, bring it on, please.  My download activity has tapered off to almost non-existant.

Jerry

[Alan Howe]

OK, a few points:

1. It is the source of a recording which is important. Thus an upload of a radio broadcast of a CD (the source) is not permitted. However, we permit the uploading of LPs that have never been transferred to CD and all radio broadcasts where the broadcast is itself the source, e.g. the BBC relay of The Gothic last summer.

2. In general, we have decided to allow the site to cover a period stretching roughly from the late-Classical period where there are clear pointers to the burgeoning Romantic movement (composers like Cherubini, Méhul, etc.) to the present day (but not encouraging the exploration of the avant-garde), i.e. restricting ourselves to basically tonal composers or those who write in the traditional forms (e.g. Maxwell Davies). It is certainly not our intention to allow the discussion of music of the Classical period or before - for that, interested members will, I am afraid, have to find an alternative forum elsewhere. Speaking for myself, I simply don't have the experience (or interest) to enter into debates about earlier music: I have to read a lot of posts as it is...

3. I myself much prefer the period 1800-1940, but have learned a lot about the period post-1940 (I have been listening to Rautavaara today!!) as a result of reading the enthusiasms of certain members.

[Amphissa]

I think assigning specific dates as parameters for the site is less useful than the style of music. Composers living in the Soviet Union composed in a Romantic style long after Europe and most of the West degenerated into the cacophony of modernism. And there were champions of the Romantic style as isolated voices in their midst.

I've posted a couple of things that probably do not deserve to be included among the august company of Eomantic-style composers. Others have as well. I would happily withdraw mine, if it suits the mods to define limits for contributions that parallel the discussion topics. It would be perfectly reasonable to me.