Mozart's music goes up online for free

Chicago (IL) - Old school has gone new school, as 24,000 pages of Mozart’s classical music has now been posted online, part of a widespread celebration of the composer’s 250th birthday.

The International Mozart Foundation in Salzburg, Austria, which paid a reported 302,000 euros (nearly $400,000) for the digital publication rights to the entire Mozart library, published the site yesterday, taking in over 400,000 hits in its first 12 hours, reports the CBC.

In addition to hosting digital files of over 600 pieces of music, which totals more than 24,000 pages, the site also lets users search for song titles or even individual lyrics to navigate through the extensive collection.

The popularity of the site is a sign that classical music is still in style, hundreds of years later. This also marks what is probably the largest attempt to put sheet music online, a venture that has been largely avoided by most music writers and publishers.

The online project comes at the end of a year-long celebration of Mozart’s 250th birthday. The composer was born on January 27, 1756. Before dying on December 5, 1791, he wrote hundreds of pieces of music, including the popular Symphony #40, and The Marriage of Figaro, all of which are still easily recognizable today.