Library guides: Music: Recordings

Listen to music online

Naxos Music Library
Online classical music library providing streaming access to a vast number of CDs. Jazz, world music and pop/rock also represented.
Accessibility statement for Naxos Music Library

Classical Music Library
Classical Music Library is a database of streamed recordings with more than 50,000 tracks from over 30 labels. The repertoire ranges from vocal and choral music, to chamber, orchestral, solo instrumental, and opera.
Smithsonian Global Sound
Produced in partnership with Smithsonian Folkways Recordings, is a virtual encyclopedia of the world's musical and aural traditions.
Contemporary World Music
Contains important genres such as reggae, worldbeat, neo-traditional, world fusion, Balkanic jazz, African film, Bollywood, Arab swing and jazz, and other genres such as traditional music - Indian classical, fado, flamenco, klezmer, zydeco, gospel, gagaku, and more.
Jazz Music Library
The largest and most comprehensive collection of streaming jazz available online — with thousands of jazz artists, ensembles, albums, and genres
Popular Music Library
Contains a wide range of popular music from around the world, including hundreds of thousands of tracks from major genres in pop music, including alternative, country, Christian, electronic, hip-hop, metal, punk, new age, R&B, reggae, rock, soundtracks and many more.
American Music Library
A history database that allows people to hear and feel the music from America's past. The database includes songs by and about the indigenous peoples of the Americas, miners, immigrants, slaves, children, pioneers and cowboys. Included in the database are the songs of Civil Rights, political campaigns, Prohibition, the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, anti-war protests and more

British Library Sounds
Recordings of music, spoken word, and human and natural environments. You cannot currently download the recordings.
Accessibility statement for British Library Sounds
This is currently unavailable following a cyber-attack at the provider, more information is available from the British Library.

Streaming TV and videos

Classical Music in Video
Contains 1,000 hours of classical music performances and masterclasses captured on video—approximately 1,500 performances in all. The collection will contain performances of all forms of classical music, including major orchestral performances by leading orchestras, plus chamber music, oratorio, and solo performances, along with masterclasses and interviews with master teachers from around the world.
Opera in Video
Contains five hundred hours of the most important opera performances, captured on video through staged productions, interviews, and documentaries. Selections represent the world’s best performers, conductors, and opera houses and are based on a work’s importance to the operatic canon.

Box of Broadcasts (BoB)
View, record, create clips and share broadcast programmes from over 75 TV and radio channels. Only available to view in the UK. For educational use only.
Accessibility statement for Box of Broadcasts (BoB)
Limitation - Full service available only to users located in the UK. BBC Parliament is temporarily available to users located anywhere in the world.
Kanopy
Is a video streaming service containing films, documentaries and educational videos in a great range of subjects and disciplines including Music.

Accessibility information for Kanopy
Digital Theatre Plus
Offers recordings of full-length stage performances as well as interviews and workshops with directors and actors.
Accessibility statement for Digital Theatre Plus

Dance in Video
Contains dance productions and documentaries by the most influential performers and companies of the 20th century. Selections cover ballet, tap, jazz, contemporary, experimental, and improvisational dance, as well as forerunners of the forms and the pioneers of modern concert dance.

Borrow CDs and DVDs

DVDs and CDs are stored in the Audio Visual (AV) collection on Level 5 of the Northampton Square Library.

You can borrow up to five DVDs or CDs at a time.