This is a list of online digital musical document libraries. Each source listed below offers access to collections of digitized music documents (typically originating from printed or manuscript musical sources). They may contain scanned images, fully encoded scores, or encodings designed for music playback (e.g., via MIDI). Some (e.g., KernScores) are adapted for music analysis.
| Name | Subject(s) | No. of Items | Description | Provider(s) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 19th-Century American Sheet Music at UNC Chapel Hill Music Library | 19th-century, American | 3,500 | Approximately 3,500 popular vocal and instrumental titles from the 1830s to the end of the century. Contains catalog descriptions and digital images of the individual pieces. | University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill |
| 19th-Century California Sheet Music | 19th-century, Californian, colour | 2,700 | Sheet music published in California between 1852 and 1900, along with related materials such as a San Francisco publisher's catalog of 1872, programs, songsheets, advertisements, and photographs. Images of every printed page of sheet music from eleven locations have been scanned at 400 dpi, in color where indicated. | University of California, Berkeley |
| African American Sheet Music | 19th-century, 20th-century, African-American, Broadway, colour, lithographs, movie music, popular music, World Wars, Yiddish-American | 250,000 | Sheet music, primarily vocal music of American imprint, dating from the 18th century to the present, with most titles in the period 1840–1950. | John Hay Library at Brown University |
| ART SONG CENTRAL | downloadable, IPA transcriptions, vocal | 1,000 | Printable sheet music primarily for singers and voice teachers—most downloadable. Emphasis on standard classical and traditional repertoire. IPA transcriptions available for every German, French, Italian and Latin song in the index. Supplementary information on more than 250 songs. | ART SONG CENTRAL |
| The Ashford Sheet Music Collection | American, Washington | 1,000 | Largely from and about Washington State and the Pacific Northwest. | University of Washington |
| Bach digital | Johann Sebastian Bach | Johann Sebastian Bach's autograph manuscripts and original parts. Advanced search options. High-resolution scans. Also contains Bach's copies of works by other composers. Comprises at least 90% of extant Bach manuscripts worldwide. Funding provided by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft and others. | Berlin State Library – Prussian Cultural Heritage, Saxon State and University Library Dresden, Leipzig Bach-Archiv, Leipzig University Computing Center | |
| Beethoven-Haus Bonn Digital Archives | audio, Beethoven, colour, first editions, letters, pictures | 15,300 | Links more than 6,100 documents on 37,300 coloured high-quality scans, 1,600 audio files (including music examples and audio letters), and 7,600 text files. | Beethoven-Haus Bonn Digital Archives |
| Biblioteca Digital Hispanica | Spanish, JPEG | Downloadable color images. | Biblioteca Nacional de España | |
| Biblioteca Nacional Digital Brasil | 19th-century, Brasil, sheet music | Sheet music in the Brazilian National Digital Library. | Brazilian National Digital Library | |
| Bodleian Library Broadside Ballads | Britain, broadside ballads | 30,000 | Printed materials range from the 16th to the 20th Century. | University of Oxford |
| Brahms-Institut | Johannes Brahms | 20,000 | RGB tiff images with a resolution of 1,200 dpi (photos) or 400 dpi (autographs, letters, prints, etc.). | Brahms-Institut |
| The Cantigas de Santa Maria: Facsimiles | black and white, medieval, monophonic | Medieval-era manuscripts written during the reign of Alfonso X "El Sabio" (1221–1284). One of the largest collections of monophonic (solo) songs from the Middle Ages. The To Codex contains roughly the first 100 cantigas, the E Codex all of the cantigas. Illuminations may be found in the E Codex with every 10th cantiga. | Greg Lindahl | |
| The Cello Music Collection of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro | violoncello, cello, manuscript | The largest single holding of cello music–related materials in the world, including annotated sheet music (manuscript and published), monographs, serials, audio/video recordings, personal papers, and artifacts associated with noted cellists. | Martha Blakeney Hodges Special Collections and University Archives, UNCG | |
| Charles H. Templeton Sheet Music Collection | 19th-century, 20th-century, American, blues, foxtrots, Irving Berlin, minstrel songs, movie music, popular music, rags, show tunes, war songs | 5,000 | Sheet music for popular tunes dating as far back as 1865. Items are scanned at 600 dpi and saved as a TIFF files. | Mississippi State University |
| CHASE research project, University of Leeds, UK | 19th- and early 20th-century performing editions of string music | 2,000 | AHRC-funded research project containing music files viewable on-site or as downloads. Most of the music consists of chamber music and concertos for string instruments, edited and annotated by such players as Ferdinand David, Friedrich Grützmacher, and Joseph Joachim. | University of Leeds Cardiff University |
| Chopin's First Editions Online | early editions, Frédéric Chopin | All of the first impressions of Chopin's first editions. | Centre for Computing in the Humanities | |
| Chopin Online Catalog | early editions, Frédéric Chopin | 85 | Scores of early printed editions of Chopin's music works published before 1881, of which 74 are works with opus number and 11 are without. | University of Chicago Library |
| Classical Music Score Digitization Project (CMSDP) | Common practice period, classical | Publicly editable library of public domain music in standardized, machine-parsable formats such as MusicXML, MuseScore, Sibelius, and Finale. Largest public, centralized repository of fully digitized CPP scores. | Classical Music Score Digitization Project | |
| The Classical String Quartet, 1770–1840 | string quartet | Rare and unusual publications of music for string quartet. | Duke University | |
| Codices Electronici Sangallenses (CESG) – Virtual Library | colour, medieval | 383 | Manuscripts from the medieval codices in the Abbey library of St. Gallen. Downloadable colour PDFs and XML files. | Abbey library of St. Gallen |
| The Computerized Mensural Music Editing Project | early music, xml score data | High-quality early music scores. Online corpus of electronic editions and associated software tools. | Utrecht University | |
| Digital Image Archive of Medieval Music (DIAMM) | colour, manuscripts, medieval, polyphonic | Images of medieval polyphonic music manuscripts from approximately 800 to 1600. Includes detailed information for all known sources of European polyphonic music (almost entirely vocal), high-resolution colour TIFF images, and links to external images available at other sites. | University of Oxford | |
| Digital Scores from the Collections of the Eda Kuhn Loeb Music Library | 19th-century, Bach, libretti, Mozart, opera, Schubert | First and early editions and manuscripts from the 18th and early 19th centuries by J.S. Bach and Bach family members, Mozart, Schubert and other composers. Multiple versions of 19th-century opera scores, seminal works of musical modernism, and music of the Second Viennese School. | Harvard University | |
| The Düben Collection Database Catalogue | 17th and early 18th centuries | 2,300 | Metadata and scanned facsimiles of items in the Düben collection of musical manuscripts and prints from the 17th and early 18th centuries. | Department of Musicology at Uppsala University, Uppsala University Library |
| e-codices: Virtual Manuscript Library of Switzerland | early modern manuscripts, medieval | 659 | Medieval and early modern manuscripts from several Swiss libraries, including the Abbey Library of St. Galla. | E-codices |
| Early Music Online | early music | 10,000 | Digitised images of over 320 volumes of 16th-century anthologies of printed music, from holdings at the British Library, made available for non-commercial use under JISC's Open Education User Licence. | Royal Holloway University of London |
| Frances G. Spencer Collection of American Sheet Music | American, popular music | 30,000 | From the late 18th century to the early 20th century. | Baylor University |
| Ignaz Pleyel Early Editions | chamber music, French, Ignaz Pleyel, keyboard music | 200 | Early printed and manuscript scores of the French composer and music publisher Ignaz Pleyel (1757–1831). Includes arrangements of large orchestral works published within the composer's lifetime. | University of Iowa |
| IN Harmony: Sheet Music from Indiana | downloadable sheet music, open source software | 129,400 | Sheet music and open-source sheet music cataloging software. | Indiana University Lilly Library, the Indiana State Library, the Indiana State Museum, and the Indiana Historical Society |
| International Music Score Library Project (IMSLP) | 799,000 | Public domain music scores (720,000) and recordings (79,000), including some contemporary composers. | International Music Score Library Project | |
| Inventions of Note | popular music, technology | 50 | Sheet music for popular songs and piano compositions, mostly 1890–1920. | Lewis Music Library at MIT |
| Jean-Baptiste Lully Collection | 17th-century, 18th-century, French, Jean-Baptiste Lully | 30 | Rare 17th- and 18th-century scores of operas, ballets, and compilations by the French composer Jean-Baptiste Lully and his sons. | University of North Texas Music Library |
| Juilliard Manuscript Collection | Beethoven, Brahms, Mozart | 138 | Autograph manuscripts, sketches, engravers' proofs, and first editions. | The Juilliard School |
| KernScores | classical | Scanned graphical music scores (separated by movement), with manually corrected OMR data:
| Center for Computer Assisted Research in the Humanities | |
| Laborde Chansonnier | 15th-century, manuscript, mensural, sacred, Octavo | One book of music from Rare Book Room, which contains digitized books of many types. Laborde Chansonnier – ca. 1470 – Unknown, (author) – France – Library of Congress, Music Division | Rare Book Room of the Library of Congress | |
| Lester S. Levy Collection of Sheet Music | 19th-century, American, minstrel music, popular music, war songs | 29,000 | American popular music spanning the years 1780–1980. | Johns Hopkins University |
| Library and Archives Canada: Sheet Music From Canada's Past | Canadian, popular music | 20,000 | Patriotic and parlour songs, piano pieces, sacred music, and novelty numbers published from before 1900 to 1920. Includes Canadian imprints and music by Canadians or about Canada published anywhere in the world. | Library and Archives Canada |
| The Library of Congress: Historic American Sheet Music: 1850–1920 | American | 3,042 | 19th and early 20th-century American sheet music drawn from the Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library at Duke University. | The Library of Congress |
| The Library of Congress: Music for the Nation: American Sheet Music 1870–1885 | 19th-century, American | 62,500 | Historical sheet music registered for copyright, including more than 15,000 registered during the years 1820–1860 and more than 47,000 during the years 1870–1885. Includes popular songs, operatic arias, piano music, sacred and secular choral music, solo instrumental music, method books and instructional materials, and music for band and orchestra. | The Library of Congress |
| The Library of Congress: The Moldenhauer Archives | Western music | 130 | Representative examples documenting the history of Western music from the medieval period through the modern era, including many complete works. | The Library of Congress |
| Medieval Music Database | medieval | Four complete manuscripts, a gradual, and three antiphonals. | La Trobe University | |
| MuseData | classical | Graphical Scores and originating data [1] for:
| Center for Computer Assisted Research in the Humanities [2] | |
| Music Australia – Australia's Music: Online, in Time | Australian music | 11,318 | Music made and played by Australians, most published before 1930. Medium-resolution scans. PDFs available. | National Library of Australia |
| Music in the Manuscripts of Bibliothèque Interuniversitaire Médecine of Montpellier | medieval | Bibliothèque Interuniversitaire Médecine of Montpellier | ||
| Music Library Digital Scores Collection | 17-19th century | 45 | Manuscript musical scores dating from the 17th through 19th centuries—mostly 17th and 18th century operas, opera excerpts, and other vocal music. | University of Washington |
| Music Manuscripts Online | classical | 900 | High-quality images and descriptions of music manuscripts. | The Morgan Library & Museum |
| Musica Brasilis | Brazilian music | 1,000 | Music scores by Brazilian composers. | Musica Brasilis initiative |
| Neue Mozart-Ausgabe: Digitized Version | Mozart | Musical text and critical commentaries of the entire Neue Mozart-Ausgabe. | Internationale Stiftung Mozarteum, Packard Humanities Institute | |
| Open Music Score | classical | Public domain music scores provided by the user community in MusicXML format. | Open Music Score | |
| Penn in Hand | facsimile, manuscripts | Bibliographic information and digital facsimiles for selected collections of manuscript codices, texts, documents, papers, and leaves held by the University of Pennsylvania's Rare Book & Manuscript Library in the Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books, and Manuscripts, as well as those privately owned by Lawrence J. Schoenberg (C53, WG56). | University of Pennsylvania | |
| Project Gutenberg: The Sheet Music Project | scores, sheet music | Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation | ||
| Raphael Project | Renaissance | Colour photos, not downloadable. | Raphael Project | |
| Répertoire International des Sources Musicales (RISM) | music manuscripts, printed music, libretti, music treatises | 59,000 | Searchable database of over 1.2 million historical musical sources, with a focus on the period between 1600 and 1850. When available, links are included to digitized items in the holding institution's repository. | RISM, Bavarian State Library, Berlin State Library |
| Sheet Music Consortium | metadata harvesting | 120,300 | Open collection of digitized sheet music, using the Open Archives Initiative: Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (OAI:PMH). Collections Indexed:
| Sheet Music Consortium |
| Sibley Music Library | 18th-century, French, opera | 8,643 | Public domain scores and books. | Eastman School of Music at the University of Rochester |
| Tablature in PDF and PostScript | lute, tab | 75 | Lute music available in EPS, PDF, MIDI, or TAB format. | Wayne Cripps of Dartmouth College |
| Tomas Luis de Victoria | editions, manuscripts, prints, Renaissance, Victoria | Prints and editions of Victoria, Morales, and some other Spanish composers. | University of Málaga | |
| A Traditional Music Library | folk music, sheet music | 60,000 | Traditional and folk music from around the world. Includes downloadable PDF scores and MIDI backing tracks for many of the songs. | Rod Smith (musician) |
| Vatican Exhibit Main Hall: Music | Renaissance | 23 | Colour JPEGs of Renaissance manuscripts. | ibiblio |
| Ville de Laon: Bibliothèque Municipale | Renaissance | Music from the 9th to 15th centuries. | Ville de Laon: Bibliothèque Municipale | |
| Virtual Music Rare Book Room | 18th-century, French, opera | Emphasis on 18th-century French opera. | University of North Texas |
