Our Discovery Download focuses on a different genre each week, offering up a free track we think is worth your attention. Before there was popular music as we know it, there was Euro classical. In the world of classical music, Johann Christoph Pachelbel’s late–17th century composition “Canon In D” is a huge hit. The secret to its success? The famously memorable chord sequence that makes it the baroque equivalent to Ben E. King’s “Stand By Me”. If you’d like to further explore the great works, check out 50 More Essentials Pieces of Classical Music which is available for the remarkable price of $6.99.
IMPORTANT: Downloads are only free on iTunes for approximately 1 week from this post date.
John Cage was a modernist composer with a playful sense of humor. In 1952 he wrote this short piano piece, which instructs the soloist not to play any notes at all – the only sound you hear being provided by audience and their surroundings.
The ensuing argument over whether or not this counts as music quickly made 4’33″ the most famous and controversial composition of Cage’s career. Today, the work is most widely understood as a challenge to the concept of silence – even when there’s apparently nothing present to make a sound, you can always hear something if you listen hard enough.
This week’s free Discovery Download is the first of the three movements, recorded at London’s historic Henry Wood Hall. Listen carefully, and you can hear traffic outside, creaking floorboards and a clock ticking somewhere in the building. If you like it, you can download the remainder of the album here and check out some of John Cage’s louder works here. Check out the album.
IMPORTANT: Downloads are only free on iTunes for approximately 1 week from this post date. 
