Update: The CSO emailed to say that the recording is available at
256-kpbs at iTunes, not the 128-kpbs I wrote earlier. Still not
CD-quality, but it's better than 128-kpbs.
Posted earlier to the TOC blog.
Now on iTunes, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra can be heard for a full hour for a measly $8. They’ve released a live recording of Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony conducted by Myung-Whun Chung from last season on their own CSO Resound label, and it’s only available as a download. You can get to the recording on the CSO’s site, or through your iTunes, and there are excerpts on both sites, should you want to peruse before you buy. (Oh, how I sometimes wish that option was available prior to actual concerts.)
For those of you obsessed with sound quality, the download will only
be available at 256-kpbs 128-kpbs, the iTunes standard. That standard is roughly a fifth an eleventh of what you can get on a CD, and you’ll notice immediately
if you burn the Shostakovich (or anything else) to disc. But whatever.
So far, I can tell you that it sounds just fine when listened to on a
computer, and an honest-to-god review of the recording will be out
soon. The concert itself was splendid, I remember, with Chung not
getting in the way of the orchestra and shaping the symphony with equal
parts gentleness and majesty.
