The Music Ngram Viewer from Peachnote tracks appearances of any given note or chord sequence in a corpus of 60,000 optically scanned public-domain classical scores, ranging from the 17th century to the present -- a la what Google Ngram Viewer does for words and phrases. A fuller description with examples. And if you don't like the Google-esque GUI, you can download the raw data and mess with it yourself. (Via Music Hack Day Boston.)
posted by escabeche on Nov 6, 2011 - 10 comments

Sir Roger Moore (recently on MeFi) performs recitations to introduce each segment of Saint-Saëns' 1886 suite Le carnaval des animaux ("The Carnival of Animals") [more inside]
posted by hermitosis on May 10, 2011 - 5 comments

The Australian ABC's Limelight magazine has put together a potted history of music, with video examples (40LYTP). [more inside]
posted by coriolisdave on May 5, 2011 - 9 comments

The bird songs of Messiaen as transcribed by Messiaen.
posted by ennui.bz on Mar 8, 2011 - 8 comments

Composer Henryk Górecki, known for his choral and orchestral works in the "sacred minimalist" style, has died. He was best known for his Symphony #3, "Sorrowful Songs," (YT sample) premiered in the U.S. in 1994. Górecki's Symphony #4, scheduled to premier in 2010, was postponed because of the composer's extended illness, will not be completed.
posted by aught on Nov 12, 2010 - 65 comments

Classical Music’s New Golden Age
posted by Gyan on Jul 21, 2010 - 63 comments

Over the past few years, Eric Whitacre has been taking the composition world by storm. And now he's all over the web. (Most links silent, personal website has an autoplay rainstorm going on.) His choral works range from the mysterious and brooding Water Night to the rambunctious modern madrigal, With a Lily In Your Hand, to the wonderfully lush Sleep (formerly a setting of Robert Frost's "Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening" - tragically halted by copyright infringement, but still available thanks to the magic of YouTube). While his instrumental compositions run the spectrum from silly musical parody (Godzilla Eats Las Vegas) to poignant melancholy (October) with some delicate crossover between vocal and instrumental (Lux Aurumque - first choral, then instrumental!). If you are or think you may be even remotely interested in contemporary classical music, you owe it to yourself to become familiar with the work of Eric Whitacre.
posted by greekphilosophy on Jun 8, 2009 - 36 comments

Rejoice, classical music lovers! After closing in October 2007 due to copyright issues, the International Music Score Library Project (previously) has reopened! (In June, but there's no FPP about it.) From a quick overview, it seems the site has most of every major (pre-20th-century?) composer's opus - far more than any other "free sheet music" website.
posted by archagon on Oct 20, 2008 - 10 comments

Explore a thousand years of classical music in 30 fifteen-minute programmes on BBC Radio 4.
posted by Aloysius Bear on Jun 11, 2007 - 20 comments

The International Music Score Library Project. PDF downloads of public domain classical music scores. From solo piano to full symphony orchestra. 2,762 works and counting.
posted by chrismear on Apr 18, 2007 - 12 comments

Japanese Surf Versions of Classical Themes
posted by BuddhaInABucket on Sep 11, 2006 - 14 comments

Mahler performances were rare in Vienna in those days because Mahler's city had already been contaminated by the acolytes of Adolf Hitler. By their reckoning, Mahler's music was loathsome — a product of "Jewish decadence." To put Mahler's music on the program was therefore a political act. It was to protest and deny the hateful faith that blazed across the border from Germany. That much I understood quite clearly, even as a boy.
The New Yorker's Alex Ross reprints Hans Fantel's New York Times 1989 essay on Bruno Walter's 1938 performance of Mahler's Ninth Symphony -- the last performance of the Vienna Philharmonic before Hitler invaded Austria.
posted by matteo on Apr 10, 2006 - 7 comments

Music is nothing.
Sound could become music.
The end must be in the beginning,
and the beginning in the end.
I am here because I am not here.
Music lives in the eternal now.
Music is the now becoming now.
What I learned from Sergiu Celibidache, by Markand Thakar. More inside.
posted by matteo on Oct 14, 2005 - 6 comments

ITC Sangeet Research Academy - a guide and resource of Hindustani classical music
RealPlayer and Flash recommended
posted by Gyan on Sep 11, 2005 - 4 comments

As a follow up to this earlier thread, the BBC has just posted the final installment of their Beethoven Experience, free mp3s of Beethoven's symphonies 6 through 9. Get them while you can, they're only up for a week (Number 6 goes down on Monday).
posted by soplerfo on Jun 30, 2005 - 27 comments

From the Top is a weekly radio show broadcast throughout the USA. It originates from Boston's New England Conservatory, but travels all over showcasing young classical musicians. The show can be heard (RealAudio) from the website, and there is an extensive library as well an archive of past shows (photos too)... the kids are very talented, and the show's hosts are great at bringing out their personalities.
posted by indices on Feb 26, 2005 - 2 comments

Has there ever been a classical music review this damning? "It's difficult to tell how good they are. If they played a wrong note or lost the rhythm, no one but the composer would notice. Music is dead, and here is the corpse, embalmed on two slices of plastic hell. "
posted by feelinglistless on Jul 8, 2001 - 38 comments