Public Domain recording of O Canada?

August 2, 2008 1:19 PM

Where can I get my hands on a clean, high-res, public domain recording of a nice full orchestral arrangement of O Canada?

An MP3 will suffice if it's stereo, 128K. But something uncompressed is ideal.

I realize that it is weird to say, regarding orchestral music: this is an emergency. But it is.

posted by damehex to Media & Arts (6 answers total)

Wikipedia has a couple of public-domain performances, e.g..
posted by stereo at 1:24 PM on August 2, 2008

Alas, both of those lovely recordings are too hissy to use. I need something nice & clean by modern audio standards. (Already had an engineer spend an evening cleaning up the 1916, but to no avail).
posted by damehex at 1:26 PM on August 2, 2008

how about this?
posted by sergeant sandwich at 2:17 PM on August 2, 2008

Yeah, found that last week. An excellent version... have written to them asking whether the recording is PD. Going to try to track them down by phone on Monday. Am worried that it will be hard to find someone there who knows anything about an mp3 on a page somewhere in their massive site. But: fingers crossed.
posted by damehex at 2:30 PM on August 2, 2008

at the bottom of that page, it says:

"Commercial use

"O Canada" and "God Save The Queen" are in the public domain and may be used without having to obtain permission from the Government."

so, no need to ask, i think!
posted by sergeant sandwich at 3:21 PM on August 2, 2008

I'm 95 percent sure that notice is in reference to the composition(s), which got sorted out by the courts as being in the PD (in the 70s, I think). Unfortunately for me, the published audio recording is another matter entirely.
posted by damehex at 5:27 PM on August 2, 2008