Classical Archives LLC is an online digital music store that solely focuses on classical music. Originally opening as the Classical MIDI Archives in 1994 primarily as a repository for free

MIDI MIDI (; Musical Instrument Digital Interface) is a technical standard that describes a communications protocol, digital interface, and electrical connectors that connect a wide variety of electronic musical instruments, computers, an ...

sequences of classical music works, in August 2000 the site incorporated as Classical Archives, LLC, and has since been also offering commercial label recordings for both streaming and downloading. Non-members can stream 60-second samples from any track on the Classical Archives. For a monthly fee of $7.99 (or $87.89 a year) members are able to stream any track, work, or

album An album is a collection of audio recordings issued on compact disc (CD), Phonograph record, vinyl, audio tape, or another medium such as Digital distribution#Music, digital distribution. Albums of recorded sound were developed in the early ...

in its entirety from the site's catalogue, and receive a discount of 10% on the price of downloads. Both members and non-members can access detailed musicological information for each work: movements,

genre Genre () is any form or type of communication in any mode (written, spoken, digital, artistic, etc.) with socially-agreed-upon conventions developed over time. In popular usage, it normally describes a category of literature, music, or other ...

, principal

instruments Instrument may refer to: Science and technology * Flight instruments, the devices used to measure the speed, altitude, and pertinent flight angles of various kinds of aircraft * Laboratory equipment, the measuring tools used in a scientific l ...

, year of composition, and key. Additionally, nearly every composer's biography is provided. Free streaming radio is available for computers and mobile devices that also includes a device to close the connection in one hour, if desired. Classical Archives uses a proprietary system (called the Contextual Metadata Engine) that allows for the ingestion and cataloguing of all recordings based on musicologically accurate and uniform metadata. Because of the Contextual Metadata Engine, visitors can search and cross-reference by various relevant criteria: composer, work title, artist, albums, historical period, instrument, and genre, in order to find and compare different recordings. Classical Archives was founded by CEO Pierre R. Schwob. The cataloguing of the Classical Archives database is carried out by a team of

musicologists Musicology (from Greek μουσική ''mousikē'' 'music' and -λογια ''-logia'', 'domain of study') is the scholarly analysis and research-based study of music. Musicology departments traditionally belong to the humanities, although some ...

led by Chief Musicologist and Artistic Director Dr. Nolan Gasser.

File types

The site provides 320kbit/s

MP3 MP3 (formally MPEG-1 Audio Layer III or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III) is a coding format for digital audio developed largely by the Fraunhofer Society in Germany, with support from other digital scientists in the United States and elsewhere. Orig ...

files for downloads and 160 kbit/s

AAC AAC may refer to: Aviation * Advanced Aircraft, a company from Carlsbad, California * Alaskan Air Command, a radar network * American Aeronautical Corporation, a company from Port Washington, New York * American Aviation, a company from Cleveland, ...

files for streaming. Sample clips are streamed at 60kbit/s for non-members.

Database

As of May 22, 2011, the Classical Archives database features 12,046 composers, 42,744 recording artists, and 26,697 Albums from 268 labels. These include the classical catalogues of

Universal Music Group Universal Music Group N.V. (often abbreviated as UMG and referred to as just Universal Music) is a Dutch– American multinational music corporation under Dutch law. UMG's corporate headquarters are located in Hilversum, Netherlands and its ...

(

Deutsche Grammophon Deutsche Grammophon (; DGG) is a German classical music record label that was the precursor of the corporation PolyGram. Headquartered in Berlin Friedrichshain, it is now part of Universal Music Group (UMG) since its merger with the UMG family o ...

, Decca,

Phillips Phillips may refer to: Businesses Energy * Chevron Phillips Chemical, American petrochemical firm jointly owned by Chevron Corporation and Phillips 66. * ConocoPhillips, American energy company * Phillips 66, American energy company * Phil ...

ECM ECM may refer to: Economics and commerce * Engineering change management * Equity capital markets * Error correction model, an econometric model * European Common Market Mathematics * Elliptic curve method * European Congress of Mathematics ...

, etc.),

Sony , commonly stylized as SONY, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. As a major technology company, it operates as one of the world's largest manufacturers of consumer and professional ...

(

RCA The RCA Corporation was a major American electronics company, which was founded as the Radio Corporation of America in 1919. It was initially a patent pool, patent trust owned by General Electric (GE), Westinghouse Electric Corporation, Westin ...

Columbia Columbia may refer to: * Columbia (personification), the historical female national personification of the United States, and a poetic name for America Places North America Natural features * Columbia Plateau, a geologic and geographic region in ...

, etc.),

Naxos Naxos (; el, Νάξος, ) is a Greek island and the largest of the Cyclades. It was the centre of archaic Cycladic culture. The island is famous as a source of emery, a rock rich in corundum, which until modern times was one of the best ...

( BIS, Chandos,

Hänssler Classic Hänssler-Verlag is a German music publishing house founded in 1919 as Musikverlag Hänssler by Friedrich Hänssler Senior (died 1972) to publish church music. The company is now based in Holzgerlingen. Since 1972 Hänssler Verlag has also publis ...

, etc.), and many independent labels through IODA (

harmonia mundi Harmonia Mundi is an independent record label which specializes in classical music, jazz, and world music (on the World Village label). It was founded in France in 1958 and is now a subsidiary of PIAS Entertainment Group. Its Latin name ''h ...

, Nimbus,

Summit A summit is a point on a surface that is higher in elevation than all points immediately adjacent to it. The topographic terms acme, apex, peak (mountain peak), and zenith are synonymous. The term (mountain top) is generally used only for a m ...

, etc.). As of June 2011, the Classical Archives has 904,230 registered members.

Other site features

* Exclusive Interviews: Artistic Director Nolan Gasser has conducted exclusive interviews with international performers and composers including

Marin Alsop Marin Alsop ( �mɛər.ɪn ˈæːl.sɑːp born October 16, 1956) is an American conductor, the first woman to win the Koussevitzky Prize for conducting and the first conductor to be awarded a MacArthur Fellowship. She is music director laureate o ...

, American Brass Quintet,

Vladimir Ashkenazy Vladimir Davidovich Ashkenazy (russian: Влади́мир Дави́дович Ашкена́зи, ''Vladimir Davidovich Ashkenazi''; born 6 July 1937) is an internationally recognized solo pianist, chamber music performer, and conductor. He i ...

Joshua Bell Joshua David Bell (born December 9, 1967) is an American violinist and conductor. He plays the Gibson Stradivarius. Early life and education Bell was born in Bloomington, Indiana, to Shirley Bell, a therapist, and Alan P. Bell, a psycholog ...

, Ray Chen,

Gloria Coates Gloria Coates (born October 10, 1938, in Wausau, Wisconsin) is an American composer who has lived in Munich since 1969. She studied with Alexander Tcherepnin, Otto Luening, and Jack Beeson. Music Her music features canonic structures and p ...

John Corigliano John Paul Corigliano Jr. (born February 16, 1938) is an American composer of contemporary classical music. His scores, now numbering over one hundred, have won him the Pulitzer Prize, five Grammy Awards, Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition, ...

, Jeremy Denk,

Danielle de Niese Danielle de Niese (born 11 April 1979) is an Australian-American lyric soprano. After success as a young child in singing competitions in Australia, she moved to the United States where she developed an operatic career. From 2005 she came to w ...

, Simone Dinnerstein,

JoAnn Falletta JoAnn Falletta (born February 27, 1954 in Queens, New York) is an American conductor. Biography Falletta was raised in the borough of Queens in an Italian-American household. She was educated at the Mannes College of Music and The Juilliard Sc ...

, Renee Fleming, David Finckel, Alan Gilbert,

Vittorio Grigolo Vittorio Grigolo (correctly Vittorio Grigòlo, born 19 February 1977) is an Italian operatic tenor. Early life Grigolo was born in Arezzo and raised in Rome. He began singing by the age of four. When he was nine years old he accompanied his mot ...

Hélène Grimaud Hélène Rose Paule Grimaud (born 7 November 1969) is a French classical pianist and the founder of the Wolf Conservation Center in South Salem, New York. Early life and education Grimaud was born in Aix-en-Provence, France. She described fami ...

Hillary Hahn Hilary Hahn (born November 27, 1979) is an American violinist. She has performed throughout the world as a soloist with leading orchestras and conductors and as a recitalist. She is an avid supporter of contemporary classical music, and several c ...

, Wu Han,

Paul Hillier Paul Douglas Hillier OBE (born 9 February 1949) is an English conductor, music director and baritone. He specializes in both early and contemporary classical music, especially that by composers Steve Reich and Arvo Pärt. He was a co-founder of ...

, Daniel Hope, Sharon Isbin, David Lang,

Lang Lang Lang Lang (; born 14 June 1982) is a Chinese pianist who has performed with leading orchestras in China, North America, Europe, and elsewhere. Active since the 1990s, he was the first Chinese pianist to be engaged by the Berlin Philharmonic, ...

, Mark Padmore, Sondra Radvanovsky,

Ryuichi Sakamoto is a Japanese composer, pianist, singer, record producer and actor who has pursued a diverse range of styles as a solo artist and as a member of Yellow Magic Orchestra (YMO). With his bandmates Haruomi Hosono and Yukihiro Takahashi, Sakamoto i ...

Stile Antico ''Stile antico'' (literally "ancient style", ), is a term describing a manner of musical composition from the sixteenth century onwards that was historically conscious, as opposed to '' stile moderno'', which adhered to more modern trends. ''Prim ...

, Trio Mediaeval, Susan Wadsworth, Xiayin Wang, and

Eric Whitacre Eric Edward Whitacre (born January2, 1970) is an American composer, conductor, and speaker best known for his choral music. In March2016, he was appointed as Los Angeles Master Chorale's first artist-in-residence at the Walt Disney Concert Hall ...

. * Free One Click Concerts™: A concert length program of selected tracks based on either a special theme, composer, period, or genre. * Free Classical Archives Internet Radio Stream Broadcast for computers and mobile devices * About pages for composers and works. Powered by All Music Guide, biographies and work descriptions provide musicological and historical background. *

Playlists A playlist is a list of video or audio files that can be played back on a media player either sequentially or in a shuffled order. In its most general form, an audio playlist is simply a list of songs, but sometimes a loop. The term has sev ...

: Members have access to playlists that are created by other members and Classical Archives staff. * Essentials: For each composer, a list of historically important works is presented.

References

External links

* {{Authority control Online music stores of the United States