Word on the Street

Free Download: "A blanco y negro / In Black and White" by Riquelme Carrillo and band from the album "¡Ayombe! The Heart of Colombia’s Música Vallenata"

"A blanco y negro / In Black and White" by Riquelme Carrillo and band from the album "¡Ayombe! The Heart of Colombia’s Música Vallenata"

In the words of GRAMMY®-winning popular singer/actor Carlos Vives, "Colombia is one of those great musical quarries of the Americas, as have been the American South, the Antilles, Mexico, Brazil, and Argentina." Since the late 20th century, the music of the vallenatos- people of a small valley region of the Caribbean coast- "has best portrayed the true way of being and feeling of the Colombian people." ¡Ayombe! The Heart of Colombia’s Música Vallenata, features two dozen seasoned vallenato performers spanning three generations, playing polished renditions of the music they know best-paseos, merengues, sones, and puyas.

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Free Download: Ludwig van Beethoven's "7th Symphony in A major, op.92"

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) is a German composer and is widely regarded as one of the most influential in Western music. He began to lose his hearing in 1801, and spent the last years of his life profoundly deaf; the tragic irony of this has been often observed.

The Seventh Symphony was written shortly after Wellington's victory at Waterloo. Civil unrest in France and the Napoleonic Wars had lasted for an entire generation, and the symphony seems to capture the celebratory mood in Europe. Indeed, Beethoven called it "one of the happiest products of my poor talents."

During his lifetime, the second movement was often performed separately from the rest of the symphony.

This recording is performed by the Orchestre National Bordeaux Aquitaine, Alain Lombard, conductor.

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Free Download: "Las tres fronteras (The Three Borders)" by Los Hermanos Lovos from the album "İSoy Salvadoreño!"

"Las tres fronteras (The Three Borders)" by Los Hermanos Lovos from the album "İSoy Salvadoreño!"

The low-slung mountains and rural villages of eastern El Salvador are home to one of the most joyous yet little-known regional musics of Latin America. Called chanchona—"big pig," the local name for the string bass—it is music made by and for country people. When the family group Los Hermanos Lovo fled the civil war of the 1980s and 1990s, they took their homegrown music with them to Washington, D.C. There, the lively sounds of the cumbia are as much an invitation to dance as a way of creating a sense of "home" and cultural solidarity.

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Free Download: Josquin des Prez's "Missa de beata virgine"

Josquin des Prez (1450-1521) is a French composer. His music provides a bridge between the late medieval period and Renaissance. Very little is known, but much is conjectured, about his early life and training. He began as a choral singer and was composing by 1483. He traveled to Rome and Milan and sang in various secular and papal courts.

Josquin returned to France when the French king, Louis XII, invaded Italy in 1498. In fact, there is an anecdote (that even may be true) about Josquin in Louis XII's court: the king had not paid Josquin a promised amount, so Josquin composed a motet using Psalm 117, "Remember your word to your servant." The court was charmed by Josquin's cleverness and Louis XII paid him.

The Missa de Beata Virgine is an amalgamation of three medieval mass styles. While the strict cantus-firmus style is found in the last three sections, the plainsong and parody styles appear as well.

This recording is performed by A Sei Voci.

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Free Download: "Pretty Saro" from the album Songs of Love and Politics, performed by Peggy Seeger

Our featured download from Smithsonian Folkways Recordings is "Pretty Saro" from the album Songs of Love and Politics by Peggy Seeger.

A dominant figure in the folk song movement in the U.S. and England for more than 35 years, Peggy personally selected these traditional and original songs focused primarily on the themes of love and politics. Songs include "Freight Train," "First Time Ever I Saw Your Face," and "Gonna Be An Engineer."

"21 tracks display the variety of Peggy's repertoire, her range of styles, love of tradition and innovative songwriting prowess." — Homespun Tapes

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Free Download: Franz Schubert's "The Trout, Piano Quintet in A"

Franz Schubert (1797-1828) was a Austrian composer. He is the only Viennese composer who was native to Vienna rather than other part of the Austrian Empire. His father was a schoolteacher who ensured that he had music lessons from an early age, including from such composers as Salieri. Schubert began composing in 1810; at the same time, he was performing in a quartet with his brothers. This appears to have influenced his early compositions which show the influence of Mozart, Hadyn, Bach, and Rossini. Schubert began composing in earnest at age 17, and proved to be a highly productive composer, turning out 50 pieces within the space of a year. He married Marie von Spaun, the sister of his friend Josef von Spaun, in 1819. Schubert's death certificate said he died of "nervous fever" in 1828, though the real cause was likely teritary syphilis.

Schubert wrote "The Trout" in 1819 on commission to write a piece with unusual instrumentation and variations in the fourth movement.

This recording is performed by Jean-Jaques Kantorow, violin, Vladimir Mendelssohn, viola, Jacques Rouvier, piano, Duncan McTier, double bass, and Phillippe Muller, cello.

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Free Download: "Kataghani" from the album Music of Central Asia Vol. 3: Homayun Sakhi: The Art of the Afghan Rubâb, performed by Homayun Sakhi

Our featured download from Smithsonian Folkways Recordings is "Kataghani," performed by Homayun Sakhi. From Kabul to California, Homayun Sakhi is admired as the outstanding Afghan rubâb player of his generation, a charismatic virtuoso who has pushed the limits of his instrument. With tabla player Taryalai Hashimi, Sakhi plays music that is uniquely Afghan, yet resonates strongly with the spirit of Indian raga. Read more about music from Afghanistan in the 2011 Summer edition of Smithsonian Folkways Magazine.

Music of Central Asia is a co-production of the Aga Khan Music Initiative in Central Asia, a program of the Aga Khan Trust for Culture, and the Smithsonian Institution Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage.

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Free Download: Albert Roussel's "Symphony No. 3, Op. 42"

Albert Roussel (1869-1937) is an early twentieth-century French composer. He was raised by various members of his extended family, and did not begin to study music until 1894, when he resigned from the French navy to pursue music. He married Blanche Preisach in 1908. Despite his resignation from the navy twenty years previously, he fought in World War I. As for many of his generation, the experience seems to have deeply affected him--his style of composition became less rococo. After years of indifferent health, he died of a heart attack in 1937.

The Third Symphony was written to commemorate the 50th Anniversary of the Boston Symphony Orchestra in 1930. In this piece, as with many of his later pieces, flute is featured prominently throughout the work.

This recording is performed by the Orchestre de Bordeaux-Aquitaine, Roberto Benzi, conductor.

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Free Download: "Cowboy Jim" from the album Pioneering Women of Bluegrass, performed by Hazel Dickens & Alice Gerrard

Our featured download from Smithsonian Folkways Recordings is "Cowboy Jim," performed by Hazel Dickens and Alice Gerrard. When Hazel Dickens and Alice Gerrard recorded these songs in the mid-1960s, bluegrass music was dominated by male performers. They selected their favorite songs and arranged them for a stellar group of sidemen—bluegrass legends Lamar Grier, Chubby Wise, David Grisman, and Billy Baker. Their widely admired performances made them role models for future generations of women in bluegrass.

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The 26 tracks have been remastered, resequenced, and newly annotated by the performers themselves, and include "Long Black Veil," "The One I Love Is Gone," and "I Hear a Sweet Voice Calling."

"Hazel and Alice blast out vintage bluegrass-country soundsongs with fierce, raucous energy." — Time Magazine. For more information, and to download this track, click here

Free Download: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's "Clarinet Concerto, K. 622"

(Johann Chrysostom) Wolfgang Amadeus (1756-1791) was an Austrian composer. He began composing at the age of 5, and at 6, playing publicly; his first public concert was for the Empress Marie Therese. For ten years after that, he toured Europe with his father and sister, who was also a musician. Touring gave the Mozarts an opportunity to expand young Mozart's fame as well as his knowledge of contemporary composers and their music beyond what might be found in Central Europe.

The Clarinet Concerto, K. 622, was written at the same time as the Requiem and was one of the last pieces that Mozart wrote. It represents a change in the way that clarinets were employed: hitherto, they had only been used sparingly in the orchestra; with K. 622, they became fully integrated.

This recording is performed by the Théâtre National de l'Opéra de Paris, Michael Arrignon, soloist.

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