[These links include only sites with scores that may be downloaded free of charge.]

General Collections

Viewing Software

[Featured]

Adobe Acrobat Reader

Free Download:




• UR Research [a Digital Institutional Repository]: Musical Scores [ Music in Adobe Acrobat Reader PDF format.] (University of Rochester)

Ghostview/GSview
[requires Ghostscript as well]
Free Download (both):

• Werner Icking Music Archive: A continuation of the GMD Music Archive [Music as MusiXTeX source files, in PostScript and PDF formats]
• The Choral Public Domain Library: An Archive of Free Choral Music [Music in Adobe Acrobat Reader PDF format; some music in other formats, including GIF, Finale, MusiXTex, Noteworthy, PostScript, Sibelius, MIDI]
• Indiana University Bloomington Libraries, William and Gayle Cook Music Library: Variations Prototype Online Musical Scores (Part of the Variations Project) [GIF format]

Variations2

• Online scores: Opera Literature
• Online scores: Song Literature
• Online scores: Orchestral and Choral Literature
• Online scores: Chamber Music Literature
• Online scores: Piano Literature
• Online scores: Solo Instrumental Literature
• Art Song Central, A comprehensive resource for singers and voice teachers [David Newman].
• Sheet Music from Canada's Past / Musique en feuilles canadienne d'antan [covers in JPEG format, music scores in PDF] (Libraries and Archives Canada)

[Other General Collections]    [  M–W    ]



Online Music Scores, Top

• abc collections [music scores in abc format only (require abc software to view or print)]
• the abc musical notation language (Chris Walshaw)
• abc software packages
• Biblioteca Virtual de Partituras / Virtual Library of Music Scores (Zoltan Paulinyi) [Text in Portugese and English. Scores in various formats, including Adobe Acrobat Reader PDF, PostScript, Finale, Sibelius, GIF, Encore; some MIDI; and some facsimiles. Composers include various Brazilian composers, Ligeti, A. Scarlatti.]
• MuseData: An Electronic Library of Classical Music Scores
[Scores Scores in MuseData format only, encoded from printed scores, including early editions of Composers' Collected Works: Center for Computer Assisted Research in the Humanities at Stanford University, CCARH Publications: Books & Journals]
• MusEdit Music Library [Scores in MusEdit format only (require MusEdit to view or print; Yowza Software)]
• MusEdit Web Site Contents
• Downloadable Demos of MusEdit and Sample Scores
• Musica Viva ["The Internet center for free sheet music downloads and more" (Music in GIF format, with some files also in ABC format or PDF.)]
• MusicTeX Score Library [Music as MusiXTeX source files, in PostScript format, and some GIF files] (M.A.B. Soloists)

LilyPond

• Mutopia: The LilyPond music archive [Music in GNU LilyPond, Adobe Acrobat Reader PDF; and PostScript formats, and MIDI]
• MyScoreStore [Commercial site, but some access to free scores. Music in Adobe Acrobat Reader PDF format.]
• Perth Score Archive [Scores in PostScript .eps format] ( Alan Bonds and Anthony Maydwell)
• PianoPublicDomain.com [Music in Adobe Acrobat Reader PDF format.]
• RowyNet Solo Sheet Music [Music in Adobe Acrobat Reader PDF format.]
• The Sheet Music Archive [Subscription site, but limited access to free scores. Music in Adobe Acrobat Reader PDF format.]
• Sheet Music Online [Commercial site, but a few free scores and exercises available. Music in Adobe Acrobat Reader PDF format; some exercises in GIF format.]
• Classical Piano Free Downloads
• www.music-scores.com [Subscription site, but some free scores available. Music in Adobe Acrobat Reader PDF format.]

	Online Music Scores, Top
	General Collections, Top

Collections, Early Music

Adobe Acrobat Reader
Free Download:
The Sibelius Viewer, Scorch
Free Download:
Sibelius Demo (for printing scores)
Free Download:

[Featured]



Ghostview/GSview
[requires Ghostscript as well]
Free Download (both):

• Acadia Early Music Archive [most Scores in PostScript .eps format; a few in Sibelius format] [FTP Directory][Facsimile Archive]
• WLSCM: The Web Library of Seventeenth-Century Music [Managing Editor, Alexander Silbiger, Department of Music, Duke University; Society for Seventeenth-Century Music; Music in Adobe Acrobat Reader PDF format]

CCARH

• CCARH Publications: Scores & Parts [Center for Computer Assisted Research in the Humanities at Stanford University; Walter B. Hewlett, Director & Consulting Professor; Eleanor Selfridge-Field, Consulting Professor; Music in Adobe Acrobat Reader PDF format, including J.S. Bach, Händel, Mozart, Vivaldi, and G. Rovetta.]
• Pièces de la renaissance: Partitions [Alain Naigeon; Music in Adobe Acrobat Reader PDF format, and Encore format]
• Johan Tufvesson's Scores [Johan Tufvesson: Music of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in score (Bitmap, PDF, and PostScript files); part of the Project Runeberg]
• Online Scores for Study and Analysis [Scores in Sibelius format & GIF files; some in Adobe Acrobat Reader PDF format.]
• Tablature in PostScript form [PostScript .eps, PDF, TAB software format, MIDI] (Wayne Cripps, Lutes, Old and New, "The Lute Page")

[Other Early Music Collections]


• Arenaï ensemble vocal, Base de données sur la musique vocale de la Renaissance "française" [Music in Adobe Acrobat Reader PDF format]

Studio aHOYO

• Early Italian Baroque Library [Studio aHOYO] [GIF format]
• Free Scores [klassiskgitar.net; Music in Adobe Acrobat Reader PDF format.]
• "On this site you will find many free scores for beginner/ student/ amateur. Together with every score follows either a MIDI- or MP 3-file."

Django

• Partitions pour le luth baroque [Lute music by S.L. Weiss, E.G. Baron, J. Gumprecht, and J.S. Bach; Zipped files in tablature in PDF and in Django formats, with transcriptions in PDF format.]

	Online Music Scores, Top
	General Collections, Top
	Early Music Collections, Top

Collections, Traditional (European/North American) Music

• Abacci Music [Abacci Books]
• "Free scores of popular traditional music, along with a discography and bibliography for each." [music in notation and tablature]

Other Guides to Online Music Scores

• WIMA: Werner Icking Music Archive: Other free sheet music archives
• freesheetmusic.net
• Free Sheet Music Links
• Free Sheet Music New Links
• Musica Viva ["The Internet center for free sheet music downloads and more" (Music in GIF format, with some files also in ABC format or PDF.)]
• Piano World Free Sheet Music
• Free-Scores.com: Annuaire mondial de la partition gratuite / Mundial directory of free sheet music / Partituras gratuitas / Partitur kostenlos [Victor Reny]
• RainMusic.com Free Sheet Music Guide
• RainMusic.com How to Find Sheet Music on the Internet!
• RainMusic.com Sheet Music Resources
• RainMusic.com Pianist Resources

Individual Composers (historical): modern scores and editions

Adobe Acrobat Reader
Free Download:

• Frederic Francois Chopin [Steve Swayne, Music 33: 18th & 19th Century Western Art Music; Dartmouth College; includes GIF images of a few pieces by Chopin]
• Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Neue Ausgabe sämtlicher Werke, Digitalisierte Version / Digitized Version, NMA Online [Complete Works of Mozart]
• "The purpose of this web site operated by the Internationale Stiftung Mozarteum in cooperation with the Packard Humanities Institute is to make Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's musical compositions widely and conveniently accessible to the public, for personal study and for educational and classroom use."
• The Music of Thomas Ravenscroft
• Modern Editions of The Music of Thomas Ravenscroft [Music in PostScripit, GIF, MIDI, and Lily Pond formats.]
• Robert Schumann: 1810-1856 [Music 33: 18th & 19th Century Western Art Music; Dartmouth College; includes GIF images of a few pieces by Schumann]
• Johann Christoph Vogel (1758-1788), Ouverture of "Démophon" [Heinz Anderle: Edition Parnassus Harmonicus]

Online Music Scores, Top

Facsimiles

[ Comprehensive | Early Music | American Music | Individual Composers | Histories ]


Facsimiles: Comprehensive

• Early English Books Online (EEBO) [access only by subscription]
• The Juilliard Manuscript Collection [Library and Archives, The Juilliard School]
• Jane Gottlieb, "Juilliard Manuscript Collection Goes Digital", The Julliard Journal Online, Vol. XXII No. 8 (May 2007).
• University of North Texas Libraries, Digital Collections: Music Library, Virtual Music Rare Book Room
• "The University of North Texas Music Library’s Virtual Rare Book Room is composed primarily of digitized materials held in the Edna Mae Sandborn Music Rare Book Room. The collection is particularly strong in eighteenth-century French opera, due in large part to the influence of musicologist Lloyd Hibberd on the development of the collection. In addition to holdings from the UNT Music Library, the Virtual Rare Book Room also contains some items that have been borrowed from private collectors and scanned with permission."

Facsimiles: Early Music

• Acadia Early Music Facsimile Archive
• Facsimiles of woodcuts (by Michael Wohlgemuth, Wilhelm Pleydenwurff, and Albrecht Dürer) from: The Nuremberg Chronicle (1493) [Michelle Muggridge, from an original 1493 printing of The Nuremberg Chronicle in the Acadia University Special Collections.]
• Facsimile of Francesca Caccini, Il primo libro delle musiche (Florence, 1618) [Sarah Lennerton]
•   Facsimile of Brunetes ou petits airs tendres avec les doubles et la basse continue; mélées de chansons a danser..., Tome troisiéme (Paris: Christophe Ballard, 1711) [Alan Cowderoy]  
• Facsimiles of pages from: Charles Burney, A General History of Music, from the Earliest Ages to the Present Period (London, 1776-1789), Vol. IV. [Marlene Murtonen, from an original of Burney's History in the collection of Gordon J. Callon.]
• Facsimiles of Excerpt from: Louis Moreau Gottschalk, Notes of A Pianist (London, 1881) [Michelle E. Keddy]
• Digital Image Archive of Medieval Music
• Alain Naigeon's facsimiles:
• [mirror]
• Jacques Barbireau, Kyrie de la Missa parens Christi ; fs Vatican
• Josquin des Prez, Kyrie de la Missa de Beate Virgine ; fs Vatican
• détail de la cadence finale
• Loyset Compère, "Omnium bonorum plena"
• (Juan del) Encina, "Triste Espagna"
• Johannes Ockeghem, Kyrie de la Missa Ecce ancilla Domini ; fs Vatican

	Online Music Scores, Top
	Facsimiles, Top

• The Music of Thomas Ravenscroft
• The Cantigas de Santa Maria
• Det Kongelige Bibliotek, The Danish National Digital Sheet Music Archive: digital facsimiles of printed and manuscript music [The Royal Library, Denmark]



Facsimiles: American Music

[ UCLA Music Library Digital Archive: Popular American Music | Indiana University Sheet Music | Lester S. Levy Collection | Historic American Sheet Music, Duke U. ]

[ Library of Congress | African-American Sheet Music | Sam DeVincent Collection | Keffer Collection | 19th Century American Sheet Music, UNC-Chapel Hill ]

[ 19th-Century California Sheet Music | Shape Note Notation | Charles H. Templeton Collection | USF Libraries Digital Collections ]

[ A more extensive list: Music Library Association: Sheet Music Collections]

• Sheet Music Consortium
• UCLA Music Library Digital Archive: Popular American Music
• Indiana University Sheet Music
• Sheet Music Collections
• The Lester S. Levy Collection of Sheet Music [Milton S. Eisenhower Library of The Johns Hopkins University]
"The Lester S. Levy Collection of Sheet Music is part of Special Collections at the Milton S. Eisenhower Library of The Johns Hopkins University. It contains over 29,000 pieces of music and focuses on popular American music spanning the period 1780 to 1960. All pieces of the collection are indexed on this site and a search will retrieve a catalog description of the pieces. An image of the cover and each page of music will also be retrieved if the music was published before 1923 and is in the public domain."
• Historic American Sheet Music [Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library, Duke University]
"...digital images of 3042 pieces from the collection, published in the United States between 1850 and 1920."
• Music for the Nation: American Sheet Music, 1870-1885 [Music Division, Library of Congress]
"Music for the Nation: American Sheet Music, 1870-1885 consists of over 47,000 pieces of sheet music registered for copyright during the years 1870 to 1885. Included are popular songs, piano music, sacred and secular choral music, solo instrumental music, method books and instructional materials, and music for band and orchestra.
• Search By Keyword
• Browse Index of Authors
• Browse Index of Subjects
• Browse Index of Titles
• African-American Sheet Music, 1850-1920 [John Hay Library at Brown University and Music Division, Library of Congress]
• Sam DeVincent Collection of Illustrated American Sheet Music, ca. 1790-1987 [Smithsonian National Museum of American History]

	Online Music Scores, Top
	Facsimiles, Top

• Keffer Collection of Sheet Music, ca. 1790-1895 [Annenberg Rare Book & Manuscript Library Collections, Penn Library]
• 19th Century American Sheet Music [UNC-Chapel Hill Music Library]
"57 volumes (approximately 2250 titles) of sheet music have been indexed. The contents of 32 of these volumes (approximately 1200 pieces) have been fully scanned and are available on this site."
• 19th-Century California Sheet Music [Mary Kay Duggan, Professor, Dept. of Music and School of Information Management and Systems, University of California, Berkeley]
"A virtual library of some 2,000 pieces of sheet music published in California between 1852 and 1900, together with related materials such as a San Francisco publisher's catalog of 1872, programs, songsheets, advertisements, and photographs."
• Shape Note Notation:
• William Walker, The Southern Harmony and Musical Companion, 1854 [Christian Classics Ethereal Library]
• Charles H. Templeton Sheet Music Collection [Mississippi State University Libraries]
• USF Libraries Digital Collections [Tampa Library Special Collections, University of South Florida]
• Music Library Association: Sheet Music Collections [a list of Sheet Music collections world wide]

Facsimiles: Individual Composers

• The Hoagy Carmichael Collection [Indiana University Digital Library Program and the Archives of Traditional Music at Indiana University.]
• Frédéric Chopin: Chopin Early Editions [The University of Chicago Library]
• Guillaume de Machaut:
• International Machaut Society: Illustrations [summary of links]
• Machaut, Oeuvres, B.N. Fr. 1586 [A page of Machaut's music from the Library of Congress Exhibit, Treasures from the Bibliothèque nationale de France: Monarchs and Monasteries: Monarchs and Monasteries: Knowledge and Power in Medieval France]
• An excerpt of Machaut's text from Machaut, Oeuvres, B.N. Fr. 1586 ["This copy at the Bibliothèque nationale de France; the description (in French) is item 24 in their on-line exhibit catalogue."]
• MS C, fol. 56v and MS C, fol. 57r [The Medieval Lyric]
• "Dame, mon cuer" [tiny facsimile; Lionheart {ensemble}]
• Jean-Baptiste Lully Collection [University of North Texas Libraries, Digital Collections: Music Library]
• "The University of North Texas Music Library's Jean-Baptiste Lully Collection includes almost 30 rare 17th- and 18th-century scores of operas and ballets by the 17th-century French composer Jean-Baptiste Lully and his sons. Many of the volumes are 1st editions printed by Christophe Ballard, who held the privelège for music printing under King Louis XIV. Several are 2nd editions, printed by Henri de Baussen or Jean-Baptiste Christophe Ballard. The Collection also contains manuscript copies of operas and one ballet that were probably offered for sale, like the prints, at performances."

Facsimiles: Histories

• Facsimiles of pages from: Charles Burney, A General History of Music, from the Earliest Ages to the Present Period (London, 1776-1789), Vol. IV. [Marlene Murtonen, from an original of Burney's History in the collection of Gordon J. Callon.]

Iconographic Sources

General Sites
• Galatea
• MusIco: software for musical iconography ["...software for a musical iconography database. ...For each image you want to catalogue, you create a record. Records are organized in pages, each of which contains a group of data fields. Data fields are served by various system-wide data lists and tables."]
• Dresden: Treasures from the Saxon State Library [Library of Congress, Exhibitions]
The Electoral Hofkapelle
The Augustan Era
The Frauenkirche
• Paris: Creating French Culture [Library of Congress, Exhibitions]
The Path to Royal Absolutism
The Rise and Fall of the Absolute Monarchy

	Online Music Scores, Top
	Facsimiles, Top

• Art and Early Music: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7   [Pagina di Musica Antica, Stefano Meneghini [A large collection of images in random arrangement; excellent reproductions, but no identification (except in the ALT= tags)]
• Mary Rasmussen's Musical Iconography [Department of Music, University of New Hampshire]


Primary Sources (documents, treatises, & specific painters)
• Images from the Cantigas de Santa Maria [facsimiles; Altramar medieval music ensemble]
• The Cantigas de Santa Maria [facsimiles; different site: Greg Lindahl]

Specific Instruments
• Recorder Iconography [The Recorder Home Page (Nicholas S. Lander)]
• historical bass website: Musical Iconography [Joëlle Morton; mainly early music; not limited to the bass]
• Images [klassiskgitar.net]
• "In the images-section You will find many figurative artworks featuring a wide variety of instruments from the lute, guitar and harp families, ancient and modern."
• Lute Society of America iconographic sources: general information
• Lutes: iconography and more pictures
• Database of Violin Iconography [Dmitry Badiarov]

Specific Composers A-L
• Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) [Matt Boynick, The Classical Music Pages] [small image]
• [Don Carlo] Gesualdo's Portrait (60341 bytes) [at: Classical Composers Database, Jos Smeets]
• Christoph Willibald Gluck (1714-1787) [Matt Boynick, The Classical Music Pages] [small image]
• George Frideric Händel:
• The Portraits of George Frideric Handel [Teri Noel Towe]

	Online Music Scores, Top
	Facsimiles, Top
	Iconographic Sources, Top

• George Frideric Handel (1685-1759) [Matt Boynick, The Classical Music Pages] [Click on link, "Picture Gallery", for 6 portraits & one sculpture]
• Josef Haydn (1732-1809) [Matt Boynick, The Classical Music Pages] [Click on link, "Picture Gallery", for 6 portraits]
• Josquin Desprez (circa 1440-1521) [Matt Boynick, The Classical Music Pages] [small image]
• Nicholas Lanier:
• Anthony van Dyck, Portrait of Nicholas Lanier
[CGFA artists site]

M
• Guillaume de Machaut:
• International Machaut Society: Illustrations [summary of links]
• Guillaume de Machaut (circa 1300-1377) [Matt Boynick, The Classical Music Pages] [Click on link, "Picture Gallery": "From a Miniature, circa 1370-1380" (Miniature from Paris BN fr. 1586, fol. E: "Nature introduces her children to the poet.")]
• Luca Marenzio:
• Portrait: Luca Marenzio, A Web Site for the 400th Anniversary, 1599-1999 [Marco Bizzarini; very nice colour reproduction of a sixteenth-century portrait of Marenzio; some MIDI files, and other minimal information] (Italian version)
• Francesco Canova da Milano (1497-1543) [Mini-Bio. and nice portrait.]
• Claudio Monteverdi:
• Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643) [Matt Boynick, The Classical Music Pages] [Click on link, "Picture Gallery", for 1 portrait]
• Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) [Matt Boynick, The Classical Music Pages] [Click on link, "Picture Gallery", for 5 portraits of W.A. Mozart (one with family), and one each of Constanze Mozart and Leopold Mozart]

N-Z
• Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (?1525-1594) [Matt Boynick, The Classical Music Pages] [small image of sculpture, & Click on link, "Picture Gallery", for 1 portrait]
• Henry Purcell (1659-1695) [Matt Boynick, The Classical Music Pages] [small image]
• Antonio Salieri (1750-1825) [Matt Boynick, The Classical Music Pages] [small image]
• Alessandro Scarlatti (1660-1725) [Matt Boynick, The Classical Music Pages] [small image]
• Heinrich Schütz:
• Heinrich Schütz (1585-1672) [Click on link, "Picture Gallery", for 1 portrait; at: Matt Boynick, The Classical Music Pages]

	Online Music Scores, Top
	Facsimiles, Top
	Iconographic Sources, Top

• Heinrich Schütz: The Christmas Collection (Paul Goodwin) [Includes Schutz iconography] [The Academy of Ancient Music]
• Antonio Vivaldi:
• Vivaldi the Violinist (Pavlo Beznosiuk) [The Academy of Ancient Music]

• Music Iconography / Iconografia musicale [Mariagrazia Carlone, Galatea]
• Iconography Index [Aquila Corde Armoniche: Manufacturers of fine gut strings and Nylgut strings for historical and modern musical performance.]

Paleography and Early Printed Images (general)

• The Written Word [facsimiles of medieval and renaissance manuscripts and printed sources, and links to similar sites]
• Nuremberg Chronicle Woodcuts:
• Facsimiles of woodcuts (by Michael Wohlgemuth, Wilhelm Pleydenwurff, and Albrecht Dürer) from: The Nuremberg Chronicle (1493) [Michelle Muggridge, from an original 1493 printing of The Nuremberg Chronicle in the Acadia University Special Collections.]
• Introduction: Nuremberg Chronicle (The Book of Chronicles from the Beginning of the World) (Michelle Muggridge)
• Title Page (facsimile)
• Directory of files [To view facsimiles, click on the *.htm file names.]
• Nuremberg Chronicle Images [At: The Written Word ("For Book Lovers and those interested in Early Printing, Manuscripts, Woodcuts, Calligraphy and Paleography.")]

• Images from Arbeau (1589) [Greg Lindahl]
• Fabrito Caroso's Il Ballarino (1581) [Greg Lindahl]

Scores of Individual Composers and Arrangers (current): modern scores and editions

Adobe Acrobat Reader
Free Download:

• Music by Pamela J. Marshall (Spindrift Music Company):
1. In Adobe Acrobat Reader PDF format;;
2. Viewable in browser

	Online Music Scores, Top
	Facsimiles, Top
	Iconographic Sources, Top

Resources

• Music Notation Software
• Viewing Software

		Sixteenth-Century Vocal Counterpoint  |  Course Description
		Special Studies in Music History (Independent Study)  |  Course Description
		Baroque Counterpoint  |  Course Description
		Acadia Early Music Archive

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