Stream 58 Hours of Free Classical Music Selected to Help You Study, Work, or Simply Relax

We are bom­bard­ed by music, all the time, whether we like it or not. In many cases—such as those almost dai­ly, inescapable trips to the gro­cery store, drug store, pet store, what-have-you store—the musi­cal accom­pa­ni­ment to our jour­ney through life has been cho­sen specif­i­cal­ly for its abil­i­ty to make us buy things: How­ev­er grat­ing we may find the soft rock, lite pop, or easy lis­ten­ing that pumps out of phar­ma­cy speak­er sys­tems, some sin­is­ter cabal of mar­ket­ing researchers deter­mined long ago that schmaltz equals sales. And so we endure yet anoth­er ter­ri­ble pop song while wait­ing in line with our essen­tials. For peo­ple like myself—highly sen­si­tive to sound and unable to tune out bad back­ground music—the expe­ri­ence can be excru­ci­at­ing.

In our own pri­vate spaces—offices, cars, the space between our ears with head­phones on—we become our own sound design­ers. We may pre­fer silence, or we may choose very spe­cif­ic kinds of music to accom­pa­ny our leisure and our work (as we dis­cussed in a few posts on music to write by some years back). These days, we can make our own dig­i­tal playlists, grab­bing music from all over the web, or we can have the algo­rithms of inter­net radio ser­vices like Pan­do­ra or Apple Radio curate our lis­ten­ing for us, a more—or some­times less—satisfying expe­ri­ence. Lovers of clas­si­cal music have a third online option, thanks to an enter­pris­ing dig­i­tal cura­tor who goes by the name of Ulysse­s­tone and who com­piled the Spo­ti­fy playlist below of 58 hours of clas­si­cal music — from Sibelius to Satie, Bach to Debussy. It’s designed for any­one who wants to study, work, or sim­ply relax.

Ulysses has pre­vi­ous­ly brought us a playlist of the endur­ing­ly clas­si­cal music in Stan­ley Kubrick­’s films and all of Mozart in a 127 hour playlist. As one music blog­ger put it, his inter­ven­tions have made Spo­ti­fy’s ser­vice “a whole lot eas­i­er for clas­si­cal lis­ten­ers.” See for your­self at Spo­ti­fy Clas­si­cal Playlists, where you’ll find blog posts on the changes to Spo­ti­fy’s clas­si­cal radio, as well as over 50 playlists ded­i­cat­ed to famous composers—“great start­ing points,” writes Ulysses, “for peo­ple who want to get into clas­si­cal music or explore a bit more.” You can stream the 58-hour playlist of study-enhanc­ing clas­si­cal music (fea­tur­ing 789 free tracks in total) by click­ing this link, or stream­ing the play­er above. To down­load Spo­ti­fy and start a free account, head on over to their site.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Down­load Free Music from 150+ Clas­si­cal Com­posers, Cour­tesy of Musopen.org

The World Con­cert Hall: Lis­ten To The Best Live Clas­si­cal Music Con­certs for Free

The Clas­si­cal Music in Stan­ley Kubrick’s Films: Lis­ten to a Free, 4 Hour Playlist

Philip K. Dick’s Favorite Clas­si­cal Music: A Free, 11-Hour Playlist

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness.