The amount of published instrumental music out there is staggering and difficult to sift through for newcomers. Sifting through racks of new albums, one finds that numerous performances of the same music can differ greatly in price. While some personalities might be inclined to find the cheapest possible recording of the music and others might be the complete opposite, the variety of the performances does matter and can be striking. The differences are often in the quality of the group performing the work, as well as the recording technologies and time being invested in the final product. An additional concern is the enormous body of recorded pieces out there, which can make it difficult to choose an appropriate starting place. It also can get expensive very quickly. Here are some free resources online that can help you get your classical music fix.
Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum Podcast (often professional concerts held at ISG)
WGBH Online Radio (several more classical radio stations online just like this one)
Dime A Dozen Torrents of live concert recordings
Classic Cat (not the prettiest site but a pretty nice resource, though most of the live links point to lossy music)
MusOpen (a small archive of some classical music)
A lot of amateur ensembles make their recordings available online through various resources. Additionally, iTunes has several good podcasts of classical music that are free.
Have others? Feel free to add to this list.
