[webcast-l] Beethoven joins iPod generation
Michelle McGuire
michelle at commedia.org.uk
Mon Jun 13 09:27:49 BST 2005
Beethoven joins iPod generation
David Ward
Monday June 13, 2005
The Guardian
Forget the Crazy Frog. The iPod generation is to be given the chance
to enjoy a more enriching download diet: Beethoven's entire
collection of nine symphonies. Following Radio 3's Beethoven
marathon, which ended at midnight on Friday, the BBC is making the
complete cycle of the composer's symphonies - more than six hours of
listening - available for free.
Listeners can visit the Radio 3 website and download as mp3 files the
complete set performed by the Manchester-based BBC Philharmonic under
the direction of its principal conductor, Gianandrea Noseda.
"The download is unprecedented in the music industry," said a
spokeswoman. "It offers a unique opportunity for householders the
world over to collect their very own portfolio for free."
There is no charge, with the orchestra's managers describing the
offer as "a gift of music-making to the world".
Favourable emails are already pouring in from the US, Canada,
Germany, Australia, Argentina and even Mongolia.
Noseda and the Philharmonic are halfway through a series of four
concerts in which all the symphonies will be performed in what is
claimed to be the first complete cycle to have been heard in
Manchester for 50 years.
The first five have already been recorded at concerts to critical
acclaim. The Guardian's Tim Ashley described it as "the most radical
and impactive Beethoven to be heard in the UK for some time".
Writing of the fifth symphony, he said it was "delivered at breakneck
speeds and played with hair-raising precision, was all muscle and
sinew, astonishing in its violence, and generating some of the shock
its first audiences must have experienced on hearing it".
Hilary Finch, writing in the Times, said: "Noseda is deconstructing
and reconstructing with energy, diligence and a devilishly daring
imagination music which we seem to know least just when we think we
know it best."
The orchestra will be back in Manchester's Bridgewater Hall this week
to play the sixth and seventh symphonies on Thursday, with the eighth
and ninth on Sunday. Recordings will be broadcast in the week
beginning June 27.
Source: Media Guardian
http://media.guardian.co.uk/bbc/story/0,7521,1505308,00.html
BBC Beethoven Downloads
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/beethoven/downloads.shtml
--
Michelle McGuire
Development Officer
Community Media Association
htpp://www.commedia.org.uk
"Access to the media for people and communities"
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