Music

Primary sources span a period of great paleographical change from the tenth through seventeenth centuries: from poorly executed fragments to exquisitely crafted codices.

From printed and manuscript music scores and texts on music to ephemera and concert programmes, archival materials documenting the life and work of composers, music scholars and performers, a huge variety and breadth of material has been collected over several centuries.

Free choral/vocal scores, texts, translations, and other useful information.

The David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library at Duke University has about forty collections of string quartets in parts dating from this time (about 1770-1840), most, though not all complete, and representing composers whose works are rarely found in modern editions.

Leading resource for the study of medieval manuscripts.

Rare or unique 16th-century music editions from the British Library, digitised from microfilm; 300+ anthologies as of Oct 2011. Click on the "British Library Catalogue" link to search and browse scores.

Cette rubrique rassemble des corpus consacrés à des compositeurs. Ces corpus comprennent notamment des partitions manuscrites autographes, mais aussi des documents d'archive et des images (Massenet, Debussy, Fauré, Saint-Saëns, Berlioz, Charpentier, Rameau, etc.).

An on-line, searchable version of the Hofmeister Monatsberichte for the years 1829-1900. Containing some 400,000 records of music publications, it is the most extensive resource for establishing what was published where and when during that period. Records are linked to facsimile images of the Monatsberichte on the Österreichische Nationalbibliothek website.

A virtual library containing scores and parts for public domain music, as well as music from composers who are willing to share their work free of charge.

A collection of 140 priceless autograph manuscripts, sketches, engravers proofs and first editions including highlights are the late engraver’s proof of Beethoven’s Symphony no. 9, with hundreds of markings and annotations by the composer; the original manuscript of Beethoven’s Grosse Fuge, in his arrangement for piano, 4 hands; and, the last scene of Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro.

First and early editions and manuscript copies from 18th - early 19th c. by J.S. Bach and Bach family members, Mozart, Schubert and more; multiple versions of 19th c. opera scores; seminal works of musical modernism; and music of the Second Viennese School.

More than 700 digitized music manuscripts from the Morgan’s collections.

Access to digitized primary sources held at renowned music archives in the US and UK. Seminal composers such as J. S. Bach, W. A. Mozart, Richard Wagner, Claude Debussy, Georges Bizet, Arnold Schoenberg, and Igor Stravinsky, among others, are represented through their original handwritten manuscripts and first editions.

Comprises more than four million pages, including printed programs, marked conducting scores, business documents, and photographs.

Public domain music scores and books digitized by Sibley Music Library, Eastman School of Music.

Online score prototype project from Indiana University, last updated in 2005 but contains selected digitized public domain scores.

Contains manuscript musical scores dating from the 17th through 19th centuries. The majority of the collection is comprised of 17th and 18th century operas, opera excerpts, and other vocal music.

A collection of mostly 19th- and early 20th-century musical scores by women composers held at the University of Michigan Music Library.

Sheet music about British Columbia, its cities, geographical features, people and other features.

The Canadian Music Centre has been supporting, preserving, and celebrating the works of selected Canadian composers since 1959.

This site is a source of sheet music published in Canada before 1921, selected from Library and Archives Canada's historical collection.

3,500+ popular vocal and instrumental titles from the 1830s to the end of the century.

The collection spans the period from the turn of the nineteenth century to the 1880s, although a majority of the song sheets were published during the height of the craze, from the 1850s to the 1870s.

A research collection covering the history of popular music in the United States from 1790 to the present.

Free sheet music for singers and voice teachers.

3,000+ pieces of music published in the United States between 1850 and 1920.

Sheet music from the Indiana University Lilly Library, the Indiana State Library, the Indiana State Museum, and the Indiana Historical Society.

Includes 103 compositions by Jewish composers from a variety of pre-World War II European countries, as well as British Mandatory Palestine.

29,000+ pieces of American popular music spanning the years 1780 to 1980.

Historical sheet music registered for copyright: 15,000+ registered during 1820-1860 and 47,000+ registered during 1870-1885.

47,000 pieces of sheet music registered for copyright during the years 1870 to 1885.

Digitized sheet music from the Library of Congress, the National Library of Australia, Duke University, Indiana University, Johns Hopkins University, UCLA, and the University of Maine.

200+ pieces of sheet music spanning the years 1838-1923, over half of which highlight women's emerging voices and suffrage efforts; the collection includes published rally songs and songsters written and compiled by notable composers and suffragists, as well as music manuscripts submitted for copyright deposit by everyday citizens.