Unlocked Recordings

Revisiting the fun Unlocked Recordings collection at the Internet Archive. The current Music Modernization Act was passed into US law on October 11, 2018. This law helps to preserve and increase public access to early sound recordings.

For more information on this change, see these posts by the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the Internet Archive, two leading champions of the Internet and information availability for all.

At this time, there are 750 albums from before 1972 in the Unlocked Recordings collection, including artists like Mrs. Miller and Orson Welles, and covering classic pop, old time radio, traditional folk music, and classical performances.

Enjoy spinning some of these classic records you might never have otherwise heard! Cheers to the Internet Archive for bringing these recordings to new ears!

Donate to the EFF and Internet Archive for the good of the whole world and to be one of the cool kids.

You can click this collage to see a full-size image of covers of all 750 current albums in Unlocked Recordings collection.

Burgmüller by Esther Garcia

This little recording is dear to us here at Rancho Oddio. We hear it every single day of the year. This is because we have set it for various alarms throughout the day. The house favorite is "L'Hirondelle," as it is the breakfast alarm that brings us together for a meal watching busy wildlife outside the patio, a truly happy start to the day.

Apart from our personal reasons for loving this beautiful album, there is the outstanding performance by Esther Garcia. She breathes life into these Burgmüller compositions which are all too often performed mechanically. There is a delicacy to her performance offering a lovely, liquid flow to the pieces.

Biography | Jamendo | Official Website | Garcia's Audio Company | Twitter

MUSIC COPYRIGHTS: Creative Commons BY-NC-SA
IMAGE: album cover
NATIONALITY: Euro W: Spain: Madrid
CLASSIFICATIONS: Classical; Piano; Romantic Era
COMPOSERS: Johann Friedrich Franz Burgmüller
LANGUAGE: (Instrumental)
FILED UNDER: Digital: Art: Historical: Euro Common

Voice, Clarinet, Fortepiano: Romantic Songs And Old Instruments

Voice, Clarinet, Fortepiano: Romantic Songs and Old Instruments by Montserrat Alavedra (soprano), William McColl (of Soni Ventorum, clarinet), Joseph Levine (fortepiano)

This album is superb, simple, and lovely. As you will hear, Alavedra's voice was full, rich, gorgeous. The same can be said of McColl's early 19th century clarinet, a Bb clarinet made by Mollenhauer in Fulda, Germany about 1820 - 1825. Joseph Levine performs on a fortepiano that was a copy of a Mozart-era instrument. The French and German lied are selections by composers Louis Spohr, Pierre Gaveaux, Giacomo Meyerbeer (Jacob Liebmann Beer), and Franz Schubert.

This album is dear to my heart and is a memoriam to the memory of Montserrat and Joseph.

MUSIC COPYRIGHTS: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License IMAGE: Improvised cover by OddioOverplay.com
NATIONALITY: Euro W: Spain; USA: Washington: Seattle
LANGUAGE: French; German
CLASSIFICATIONS: Classical; Classical Voice; Fortepiano; Clarinet; Historical Instruments; Opera
FILED UNDER: Digital: Art Music: Voice

Happy Birthday, Mozart

Celebrating the 258th anniversary of the birth of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (27 January 1756 - 5 December 1791)

Various Artists - Mozart Birthday Party

[tracks: 23, total time: 7:26:37]

 

Music License: Various licenses; see individual tracks Image: tweaked photo of painting of little Wolfie circa 1763 by Jean-Baptiste Greuze
Artist Location: Germany, France, Austria

The World's Best Symphony Orchestra

Founded in 1888, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra (Koninklijk Concertgebouworkest) of the Netherlands is widely recognized as the greatest symphony orchestra in the world.

Together with Radio 4 Netherlands, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra shares a concert series available for download. The series was released in 2009 to celebrate the 80th birthday of famed conductor Bernard Haitink.

The three brilliant symphonic works conducted by Bernard Haitink include:

•     Georges Bizet- Symphony in C Major    
•     Robert Schumann - Symphony No. 1    
•     Ludwig van Beethoven - Symphony No. 3 "Eroica" 

The Bizet is spectacular, and the Beethoven and Schmann are top-notch, too. Each download is accompanied by cover art and information.

Official Website | Wikipedia | Facebook | AllMusic

Music License: © All Rights Reserved

Artist Location: based at the Concertgebouw (Concert Hall) in Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Handel Society Choir Performs Greek Myth Serenata by Handel

The Handel Society Choir performs George Frideric Handel's small opera Acis And Galatea (HWV 49, c. 1718). The English libretto is written by John Gay, composer of The Beggar's Opera.

The charming and tragic love story of Galatea, her beloved Acis, and the sinister cyclops Polyphemus is well-explained in the Mythology Guide. The text of the libretto is available from Opera Glass (Stanford University).

Handel wrote some of his most beautiful melodies for the story of Acis and Galatea, and it was Handel's most popular dramatic work. More about the work can be found at Wikipedia.

MusOpen is an archive of public domain classical performances and sheet music. Visitors may stream all the music, but MusOpen requires a free account login to download.

Official Website | MusOpen | Opera Glass | Mythology Guide

Music License: Public Domain
Artist Location: Surrey, British Columbia, Canada

Image: detail of Acis and Galatea, by Nicolas Poussin, c 1626-1628, oil on canvas. National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin, Ireland.

Early Music on Guitar by Jon Sayles

Occidental classical music begins with Early Music which spans from 500 AD to the mid-eighteenth century. This starts with Medieval (500-1400) and flows into Renaissance (1400-1600) before it concludes with Baroque (1600-1760).

Jon Sayles, a software developer for IBM, was introduced to Early Music when he was at college. For pleasure and to share this rare music with the world, Sayles has recorded many performances and hosts them on his website at Early Music: Classical Guitar Ensemble.

Music License: © Terms read like Creative Commons BY-NC-ND, but see site for exact terms

Image: detail from 14th century medieval tapestry Geflügelte Hirsche (Winged Deer) housed at the Musée Départemental des Antiquités de Rouen

Klezmer and Classical Reinterpreted by City & Eastern Symphonia

In it's heyday of the late '80s to mid-'90s, City & Eastern Yass Bend was the greatest Klezmer Band in the Netherlands, famous for its weekly concerts in "Het Syndicaat" in The Hague. The group was founded by Marcel Cuypers and Wilma Paalman. It morphed into other groups over the years based on the instruments and performers. All specialized in unorthodox interpretations of classical and folk music. Through their idiosyncratic versions of forgotten classics, City & Eastern Symphonia breathed new life into centuries old music.

The City & Eastern Symphonia album Time Release is a chronological overview of music beginning in antiquity at the time of Confucius and Pythagoras, working through the Middle Ages and classicism, to come to the brink of the twentieth century. It features compositions by Mozart, Mussorgsky, Brahms, Tchaikovsky and Satie, among others, focusing on Asian-style pieces, like "Danse Arab" and "Turkish Marches". They also sing Roma and Swedish folk songs.

Performing are Marcel Cuypers, clarinet, piano, vocals; Astrid Rubenowitz, violin; Wilma Paalman, cello, zang; Alain Labrie and Erik Schurman - guitar; Jan den Boer and Peter Wassenaar, contrabass; Rupert Rubenowitz - percussion; and Marcel van der Schot, accordion.

Cupers shares many other recordings on his site, as well. Time Release has long been a favorite at Oddio Headquarters.

Marcel Cuypers | Wilma Paalman

Music License: © All Rights Reserved
Image: Candid photo of some members of City & Eastern Symphonia from website of Wilma Paalman
Artist Location: The Netherlands

Etsuko Chida, Classical Japanese Koto

Etsuko Chida beautifully plays koto and sings on her album Koto Kumiuta on the polished Shskh label. The compositions she performs on this album are from 900 - 1200 AD.

Track one is also available on the FMA:



The label Accords Croisés tells us:

Etsuko Chida is born in Sapporo, the main town of Hokkaido, the northern island of the japanese archipelago.

When she was five, she began to learn how to play koto and singing at the Yamada School, whose current master is Yemoto Hagioka Shoin, living in Tokyo. In Sapporo, Etsuko Chida followed the rigorous traditionnal teaching of three of the most important koto virtuosos, Kaga Toyomasa, Yokota Toyochika and Sanagi Okatoyo. After long years of studying, Etsuko Chida was given the right of having a Natori, a professional name : Toyochi Eka.

Etsuko Chida kneels on the stage carpet with all the grace imposed by the Kimono and bends over her noble wood-ivory-nylon-made companion. With precise gestures, she adjusts the position of the bridges and the tension of the strings, then caresses them to extract their crystalline sound.

Inspired during the 7th century of the Chinese Cheng, the koto has become, as centuries went by, one of the most representative instruments of the traditional japanese music. Many styles of playing this zither have been developped through the years. Etsuko belongs to the Yamada School which, during the 18th century, added the narrative singing to the deepest values of instrumental music, privileging the use of koto rather than the Shamisen lute which was the dominant instrument at that time.

Official Website | lastFM

Music License: © Creative Commons BY-NC
Image: from official website
Artist Location: Japan

Emanuel Salvador Performs Works by Modern and Contemporary Composers

Emanuel Salvador, "one of the finest Portuguese violinists of his generation" per Strad Magazine, has released an album with the incredible cutting edge label XS Records in Portugal. The label is a champion of contemporary classical music and improvisational formats.

Salvador's Selected Performances features exquisite performances of works by modern composers Sir Edward Elgar and Claude Debussy followed by contemporary composer Karl Fiorini.

This album is a genuine treat for modern art music enthusiasts!

Official Blog | SoundCloud | ClassicalConnect | XS Records

Music License: Creative Commons BY-NC-ND
Artist Location: Portugal

Franck's Sonata for Cello and Piano

The Sonata in A major for Violin and Piano by César Franck is one of his best known compositions, and considered one of the finest sonatas for violin and piano ever written. It is an amalgam of his rich native harmonic language with the Classical traditions he valued highly, held together in a cyclic framework....

The Violin Sonata in A exists in versions for cello, viola, flute, alto saxophone, tuba, organ with choir, violin and strings, and violin and orchestra. However, the setting for cello and piano was the only alternative version sanctioned by Franck. It is believed that the work was first conceived as a sonata for cello and piano and only later reset for violin and piano.

Bang-Eun Lee (cello), Paul Pitman (piano)

Franck: Sonata in A Major for Cello and Piano

Franck Wikipedia | Sheet Music

Music License: Public Domain
Image: Belgian-French composer César Franck (1822-1890) photographed by Pierre Petit (1832-1909)

Pierrot Lunaire

In 1884, Pierrot Lunaire: Rondels Bergamasques (Moonstruck Pierrot), a collection of 50 poems by symbolist Belgian poet Albert Giraud was published. The protagonist in the poems is Pierrot, that classic sad clown who dates back to the 16th century. Pierrot ached for the love of Columbine who broke his heart when she ran away with Harlequin. He is such a classic that Pierrot is the inspiration for the white-faced pantomimes in theaters and on city streets for more than 500 years.

Many composers have set the Giraud poems of Pierrot to music. However, it was expressionist composer Arnold Schoenberg who created one of the landmark musical masterpieces of the 20th century with 21 of the poems. His Dreimal Sieben Gedichte Aus Albert Girauds "Pierrot Lunaire" (Three Times Seven Poems From Albert Giraud's "Pierrot Lunaire"), more commonly known as Pierrot Lunaire, Opus 21 or Moonstruck Pierrot, premiered in 1912 in Berlin. Schoenberg used a German translation of the poems for his work.

Schoenberg, leader of the Second Viennese School of musical composition is best known as an atonal pioneer, and Pierrot Lunaire is atonal, but this work predates his famous twelve-tone technique of composition.

The narrator in Schoenberg's Pierrot Lunaire, typically a soprano, sings in the technique of Sprechstimme (spoken voice), an expressionist vocal technique that lives between singing and speaking.

Soprano Jessica Abel performed the difficult Sprechstimme in Arnold Schoenberg's Pierrot Lunaire with Ars Nova Dallas conducted by Jordan Randall Smith at the 2009 Dallas Festival of Modern Music.

The recordings of that performance are available at

NoiseTrade (free, suggested donation) | SoundCloud (stream) | Bandcamp ($4)

The musicians are Jocelyn Goranson on flute/piccolo, Mary Druhan on clarinet/bass clarinet, Veronica Gan on violin/viola, Craig Leffer on cello, and Reuben Allred on piano.

Arnold Schönberg Center | Jordan Randall Smith | Ars Nova Dallas |  Jessica Abel

Music License: all rights reserved
Image: Pierrot, by Mabel Dearmer (1872 - 1915), The Studio (magazine), Volume 11, page 262, 1897. (source)
Artist Location: Dallas, Texas and Baltimore, Maryland, USA

Baroque Classical Guitar

The Bach Guitar Duo (Florindo Baldissera and Victorinus Nalato) has a gorgeous album of baroque works, Obstinatum: Chaconnes e Passacalles, on the AlchEmistica netlabel.

The chaconne and passacaglia are types of musical composition first found in the early 1600s in the baroque era in Spain. They were vehicles for variation on a repeated short harmonic progression. Both usually had a bass-line serving a compositional outline for variation, decoration, figuration and melodic invention. The bass-line typically descend stepwise from the tonic to the dominant pitch of the scale while the harmonies emphasize the circle of fifths. The passacaglia is typically based on a bass-ostinato and written in triple meter.

This anthology of passacaglia and chaconnes presented by Bach Guitar Duo features compositions of Germanic nations of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The composers include Friedrich Christian Witt (c1660 - 1716), Johann Caspar Ferdinand Fischer (1665-1746), Dietrich Buxtehude (1637-1707), Georg Philipp Telemann (1681-1767), and Johann Pachelbel (1653-1706).

Florindo Baldissera plays guitar on higher fourth by Loris Colladon, 2008. Victorinus Nalato plays on guitar by Masaru Kohno, 1981. Recorded in Belluno, Municipal Auditorium, on June 2010.



Location: Venice, Italy
Image: The first page of the autographed manuscript of the Passacaglia and Fugue in C minor, BWV 582, by Johann Sebastian Bach
Music License: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported

Random Rotation 20130425

More about these releases (artists, genres, ...)

Compositions For Visual Arts

Works of
Contemporary Composers and  
Experimental Musicians

to enhance exhibitions of

Works by
Contemporary Visual Artists and  
Performance Artists

Lights Out In The Habib Gallery

featuring

Anthony Braxton; Ben Johnston; Bosques De Mi Mente; Christian Wolff; Jared C Balogh; Jonathan Harvey; Larry Polansky; Lee Hyla; Lee Maddeford; Lloyd Rodgers; Mary Ann Roberts; Melvyn Poore; Muhal Richard Abrams; Nick Didkovsky; Sandro Marinoni; Sirius String Quartet; Stephano Roncarlo

license: multiple licenses, please refer to individual tracks for licensing information

cover photograph: Robert S. Donovan (Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 License)

Compositions That Inspired Frank Zappa

Inspired by a release of composers and compositions influential to Frank Zappa and his work, Happy Puppy Records compiled a similar Creative Commons release for all ears.

The Happy Puppy Records compilation is made of works by genuine mavericks of the world of 20th century classical music featuring works from 1899 to 1970.

Regardless of one's opinions of Zappa, this is an important collection of modern compositions. Get Various Artists - The Classicality of /'Zəeppə/ [hpr049] from Happy Puppy Records.

album license: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0






More about the selected compositions:

Franz Danzi Wind Quintet Opus 67

Soni Ventorum Wind Quintet were recorded live in concert, February and October 1980, performing the Wind Quintet Opus 67, Nos. 2-3 of Franz Danzi and made available Pandora Records.

THE PERFORMERS

The Soni Ventorum Wind Quintet was an American wind quintet had performed together in different combinations since the 1950s. Some of them even performed together in the U.S. Army. Soni Ventorum was officially founded in 1962 when Pablo Casals asked them to become the woodwind faculty of his newly founded Conservatory of Music of Puerto Rico. Members of the ensemble were on faculty at the Conservatory of Music of Puerto Rico and members of the Puerto Rico Symphony.

After leaving Puerto Rico, the members were reunited as faculty of and as the resident wind quintet of the University of Washington the next 30 years. Through their concerts, tours, and recordings, the Soni Ventorum Wind Quintet established an international reputation. See the group's official website for more of the history of this highly regarded quintet.

Soni Ventorum and Prof. Allen Goldstein of Pandora Records (1973 - c. 1983) provide on their website an audio archive of some of their performances. The recordings consist predominantly of unedited location recordings from concerts presented by members of the Soni Ventorum Wind Quintet and their guests.



THE COMPOSER  

Franz Ignaz Danzi (June 15, 1763 – April 13, 1826) was a German cellist, composer and conductor, the son of the noted Italian cellist Innocenz Danzi. Born in Schwetzingen, Franz Danzi worked in the royal courts of Mannheim, Munich, Stuttgart and Karlsruhe.

Erik Satie

Erik Satie was an original, a composer who pushed boundaries and influenced others to do so. Here are traditional and innovative renditions of Satie classics, as well as some readings of Satie's words.

THE TRUE MUSICIAN
by Erik Satie

He grows in wisdom...He is brilliant...He learns to do without
and is prepared to make great sacrifices...enormous sacrifices...
if I may say...His energy is tremendous...
In other words he is prepared for the struggle...and with honesty he shall fight it...

The performance of an Art demands complete self-denial...
...It was not meant as a joke what I just said...about sacrifices...
The Music makes heavy demands upon those who want to
devote themselves in it...This is what I have wanted you to call your attention to...

A true musician must subordinate himself his Art;
...he must place himself above human suffering;
...he must draw courage from within
...and only from within.

:: Various Artists - Satie In White Robes
a compilation of some versions of Satie compositions shared at the FMA

license: varies by track

:: Barbagallo - Plays Satie Barbagallo performs the classics by Erik Satie in Gymnopédies (1888) and Gnossiennes (1890). The latter are the more interesting in this set. Arranged, performed, recorded, and mixed by Carlo Barbagallo. license: Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0

:: Chad Crouch: Satie: Rearranged Furniture Music Crouch's own arrangements and performances, especially focused on the piano with some other instrumentation and field recordings. This album includes Satie's Sarabande series.  license: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial

:: B.L.Underwood - Tribute to Erik Satie  Underwood performs Satie classics on a Korg Wavestation and Akai S5000 sampler. His version of "Je Tu Veux" is almost ethereal. license: Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 UK

:: Pierre Laniau - Erik Satie Pieces Pour Guitare Laniau performs guitar renditions of a broader scope of Satie's work. license: uncertain, assumed all rights reserved      

:: Howard Hersh - Selected Writings and Music of Erik Satie [1968] "The selections, which seem to be taken from assorted lectures, essays, and perhaps diary entries are both whimsical and enlightening. Subjects vary from his love for cabbage soup (only surpassed by his love of his mother); a schedule of activities; a list of his preferred diet (only white foods); comments on the education system of France; as well as the admission that he never married for a fear of being cuckold and the belief that no woman could understand him. In the second half of the program we hear Satie’s comments on critics and animals; ruminates on his heritage and lifestyle; as well as a description of the purpose of furniture music. Satie was known to be a bit of an eccentric and these brief insights from his own pen do nothing to disabuse the listener of that impression. The readings are interspersed with unidentified selection of piano music, also by Satie." license: Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0    

:: Anna Carol Dudley (soprano) and Nathan Schwartz (piano) - Selected Songs by Erik Satie [1969] Howard Hersh introduces this set of Satie songs "with a sprinkling of Satie’s solo piano music and a song cycle by his friend Claude Debussy included for added seasoning. Although Satie is perhaps best known for his serene works for solo piano as well as his many dramatic works, he also produced a selection of song cycles and cabaret songs. While motivated by the fees such popular songs demanded in turn of the 20th century Paris Satie did not stint on the quality, and his cabaret songs are still as delightful to the ear as when they were first performed in the cafes of the French capital. For this program the performers are Anna Carol Dudley, soprano and Nathan Schwartz, piano." license: Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0

Explore Opera With An Opera Singer

Opera singer Richard Scott explores opera "through the prism of various themes - politics, power, greed, the abominable, magic, lust, comedy" in the Resonance FM radio program (Thursday at 4pm, repeated Friday at 8am) and archived podcast, The Opera Hour.

Resonance104.4 FM is London, England's art radio station.

A platform for sound and radio art, experimental art practice, specialist musics, free speech and deep thought, we broadcast original content from musicians, artists, scientists, instigators, critics and thinkers from London's kaleidoscopic communities. Resonance FM is a challenging model of community media hailed as "the best radio station in the world".

Sample show (seems to be the only one hosted on SoundCloud)

Alessio Benvenuti

Alessio Benvenuti is an accomplished classical performer in Roma, Italia. He made his name as a violinist, and he is also a gifted multi-instrumentalist. Benvenuti's 2-CD performance of Johann Sebastian Bach's Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin (BWV 1001-1006) appeared in a Blogio Oddio dozen years ago. We would now like to draw your attention to a collection of his piano works, as well.

Alessio Benvenuti: Piano
Alessio Benvenuti: Bach Violin 1	Alessio Benvenuti: Bach Violin 2

license: all rights reserved, full copyrights