Classical cd shop links
This is a mix of sites that we recommend for having a broad or rare selection and sites and record labels that offer the possibility to prelisten tracks.
Amazon
The biggest shop on internet with a large classical collection. From some tracks you can listen the first 30 seconds.
Art of the States
Music from American composers in real audio with links to publisher and seller websites. A lot of complete works.
The British Library - sound archive
Search in this database of nearly 2.5 million recordings. If you search on more than one word you should put AND between them.
Russian DVD
Start with clicking on "Switch to English at the top". You can listen to a few complete cd's and many sample tracks of this music shop at 24-48kbps wma.
Naxos
You can pre-listen many of the Naxos cd's (registration required: 20 kbps asx files). With a free subscription you can listen a quarter of each track. With a paid subscription (about $20,- a year) the complete tracks.
Magnatune
A record company that embraces the internet. You can listen to many complete cds at 128kbps. Streaming audio only.
Baroque Music Club
They sell a lot of Bach and baroque cds. On their listening pagse you can listen to two hours of fragments (typically 1:30) of cds at 64kbps.
Ongaku records
A record label that offers you to pre-listen many of the tracks in realaudio (44 kbps).
Hyperion Listening Room
Around 700 soundsamples from Hyperion cd's. They are usually complete tracks at 128 kbps mp3 or realaudio. Streaming audio only.
Cedille Records
This not-for-profit recording label promotes musicians in the Chicago area. From most cds you can pre-hear a track in realaudio.
Royalty Free Music
Buy here music for your movie or as background music in your pub or shop.
iClassics
Now that iClassic has been taken over by Arkivmusic their collection is similar, but the 30 second realaudio tracks of every track of many cds are still attractive. They offers also quite a lot of text (cd reviews, etc.).
NiV Music
A very small record label (4 cds) that offers some audio and video clips of Beethoven and Chopin: streaming audio only.
Brana Records
A record label with quite a lot of tracks on its listen page.
Ars Antiqua - Mikrokosmos
No online samples here. Mikrokosmos offers each month a list that contains thousands of rare classical LPs (and 78s).
Classical Reference
This is large database (250.000) of old recordings. You can search on keywords and get a list of recordings, but the crucial information (label and label nr.) is only displayed for paying members.
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