When I was a boy, my father liked two types of music: Neil Diamond and classical. Unsurprisingly, as an adult I’ve come to love both.
Classical music can be expensive, though, especially if you don’t know what you like. During the 1990s, I spent a small fortune acquiring a library of Beethoven, Bach, and Brahms. The latest issue of Newsweek notes that the classical music industry is at the forefront of online distribution. This is convenient, but doesn’t help with the cost.
Fortunately, there’s Classic Cat, the free classical music site. Classic Cat is a web-based catalog pointing to thousands of free downloadable classical music mp3s. If you’ve ever wanted to explore orchestral music, this is a great way to do it on the cheap. Here’s how the site describes itself:
Classic Cat is a directory with links to over 2800 free-to-download classical performances on the internet, sorted by composer and work.
The links on Classic Cat are checked regularly so there should be few dead links. Some websites that we link to are occasionally overcrowded or down. In those cases we advise you to bookmark the page and come back on another day. For some websites you need to register. This is free and is asked when you start your first download there. Please note that these websites are not part of Classic Cat.
Classic Cat wants to be a legal alternative to filesharing services. To achieve that we select only music that adheres to certain standards: a minimum sound quality of 128 kbps, complete movements (or fragments of at least 3 minutes) and acceptable playing and recording.
Classic Cat features a list of the site’s 100 most popular works, as well as an overview of all available mp3s. You can also browse for mp3s by performer, by composer, or by genre.
These aren’t the sorts of high-quality performances you get from a professional compact disc, but there’s some fine music here. For example, I quite liked the version of Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade by The Peabody Institute (Sinbad, Kalendar Prince, Prince & Princess, Baghdad).
Used in conjunction with a site like BBC Radio 3, you could use Classic Cat to explore the world of classical music on your own terms.
Now if only there were a similar service for the music of Neil Diamond…
This article is about Odds and Ends, Self-Improvement, Tools
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I use seeqpod.com for all of my music searching needs.
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Had no idea this even existed. Thanks man!
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Thanks for this info, I never knew that this directory existed.
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Thanks for the tip! I love classical music and have a hard time finding good songs without paying an arm and a leg for them. So far the few songs I’ve downloaded from this site have been excellent.
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Don’t overlook used CDs (regardless of the genre). Music of both these types can be inexpensive (some out-of-print classical CDs are very expensive, but many of them aren’t). Often the CD itself costs less than the shipping.
Look up the CD on Amazon, then click the “used & new” link on the left-hand side. I suggest looking at the descriptions before blindly buying the cheapest available copy to make sure you’re getting one that’s in nice shape, has the booklet and a jewel case (some sellers ship without the jewel case to save money), and check the seller’s rating/feedback (which works a lot like eBay). If a seller’s rating is a bit low, you can click on the rating to see the feedback other buyers have left. If it looks like the other buyers are being unreasonable, I’ll buy from that person. I’ve done really well buying this way, getting good stuff much less expensively than I could get it locally (if I could find it at all).
Of course free is better than cheap, but when free isn’t possible (or legal), cheap will do…
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[...] Classic Cat: The Free Classical Music Directory. I’ve been a fan of this website, mentioned here by Get Rich Slowly, since its beginnings. Go download some free music. [...]
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