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library of congress national jukebox
library of congress national jukebox. Library of Congress launches National Jukebox with 10,000 free streaming recordings. The Library of Congress has launched an online ‘National Jukebox’ in a partnership with Sony Music Entertainment that makes more than 10,000 historic and rare music and spoken-word recordings available for free.

The agreement with Sony Music gives the Library of Congress access to the recording giant’s entire pre-1925 catalog, which comprises thousands of recordings originally produced by Columbia Records, Okeh, the Viktor Talking Machine Company and many others.


Performances by Rachmaninoff, Stokowski, Toscanini and opera stars Enrico Caruso, Nellie Melba and Geraldine Farrar are featured, as is the original recording of Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue by the Paul Whiteman Concert Orchestra with the composer on piano. The site
will also include a digital facsimile of the 1919 edition of the Victrola Book of the Opera, a trend-setting opera guide that describes more than 110 operas, including illustrations, plot synopses and lists of recordings offered in that year. Features include the book’s original text, a comparison of the different interpretations of the most popular arias of the period, and streamed recordings of nearly every opera referenced in the book.

Librarian of Congress James H. Billington described the initiative as
“a chance to hear history. This collection includes popular music, dance music, opera, early jazz, famous speeches, poetry and humor. It is what our grandparents and great-grandparents listened to, danced to, sang along with. This brings online one of the most explosively creative periods in American culture and music.”
Source:theclassicalreview

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