Free Beethoven!

No, not a prisoner or hostage relief action, but absolutely free and legal downloads of all nine Beethoven symphonies performed by the BBC Philharmonic, conducted by Gianandrea Noseda, courtesy of BBC. The symphony MP3s will each be available the day after webcast/broadcast and the broadcast schedule is published at the above link. As of this writing, two of them are available for immediate download.

One of my earliest memories, and one of the few comforting ones of my father, was waking up in the middle of the night and sneaking downstairs to see why the music was playing so loud. It was my dad, standing up in the dark, with his eyes closed, waving his arms, conducting Beethoven's 9th performed by the New York Philharmonic along with Arturo Toscanini playing on RCA Victor recordings.

Happy Listening.