The Music of “Breaking Away”, free to use and share

The Music of “Breaking Away”, free to use and share
Every cyclist is stirred by the classical music used in the Academy Award-winning 1979 movie “Breaking Away.” We hum the Italian Symphony when we train, we sing “Libiamo” as we roll home.

As a holiday gift to all my cycling friends, I made a link to a dropbox folder containing free versions of the wonderful classical music used in the movie “Breaking Away”.

The Music of Breaking Away, Free to Use And Share

Sources and links:

Rossini, The Barber of Seville – Overture, Davis High School Symphony Orchestra (via Musopen)
Rossini, The Barber of Seville – Largo al Factotum, Riccardo Stracciari (via Classic Cat)
Mendelssohn, Italian Symphony, Movements I and IV, Musopen Symphony
Flotow, Martha m’appari, Caruso (via Musopen)
Verdi, La Traviata – Libiamo (via Musopen)

Because the compositions are now in the public domain and these specific recordings have been released for free public use (or have lapsed into the public domain), you are free to download them, copy them, and share them without restriction.  For example, you can use them as soundtracks on cycling videos that you shoot and upload.

To give as a stocking stuffer, just download these files onto a $2 thumbdrive or memory card. The total file size is only about 50MB.  You can use the extra space to add Civilization on a Stick.

A note on copyright: I’m no expert (unlike former hour record holder/digital freedom warrior Molly van Houlewing) but the short story is that these compositions, being quite old, are off copyright.  Any specific performance of these compositions is subject to a new copyright owned by the artist, but the artist can choose allow the public to use the recording freely. Each of the recordings linked above is free for public use, though it’s good form to cite the source and the artist