What a fascinating introduction to this Message Board this thread has been! I have nothing to offer on the topic under discussion, except this:
The National Arts Center of Canada has made available for download in MP3 format Beethoven's Symphony No. 1 in C Major. I don't know whether it's Classical, Romantic, or just old, but it sounds nice. The link is
http://www.nac-cna.ca/en/multimedia/audio/index.html How are URLs made active here?