Online scores and indexes

This page provides resources for locating and accessing online scores.

Locating online scores, from the Music Library's blog, serves as a guide to using several of these sites to find and access scores.

• Art Song Transpositions (New!)
  • Online access to scores for thousands of public domain art songs and Baroque arias in various key transpositions; new titles and transpositions are added regularly
  • Search the database using keywords from the title and/or the composer's name, then select the preferred key or vocal range
  • Scores can be viewed online, downloaded, and printed in full
• Music Online: Classical Scores Library, vols. 1-5 (Alexander Street)
  • Access digital scores from numerous publishers, including Boosey & Hawkes, Breitkopf and Härtel, Donemus, Muzyka, Novello, Universal, and Hansen
  • Includes full, study, piano, and vocal scores and encompasses a wide range of classical music genres from the Medieval period to the 21st century; some editions include individual parts for chamber music
  • Scores can be viewed online, downloaded, and printed in full
• nkoda
  • Expanding collection of more than 80,000 digital scores from over 100 publishers, including Bärenreiter, Boosey & Hawkes, Breitkopf & Härtel, Faber Music, and Ricordi
  • The nkoda app provides a range of annotation features. See nkoda’s YouTube channel for instructional videos.
  • App allows downloads for offline use
  • Note: This database has a limited number of 15 simultaneous users.
  • nkoda’s troubleshooting page provides answers to frequently asked questions. Contact the Music Library staff for additional help.

  • NB: To access this resource for the first time, users must create an account to then download and install the nkoda app. Accessing nkoda from the Sofia catalogue should identify McGill as the affiliated institution for the sign-up process. Alternatively, users can choose the “Sign up with an institution” option and select McGill University. Find which platforms and devices are compatible.
• Recent Researches in Music Online - RRIMO (A-R Editions)
  • Online access to all scores published in the seven Recent Researches in Music series: Medieval, Renaissance, Baroque, Classical, 19th/20th centuries, American (including MUSA), and Oral Traditions, as well as the series Collegium musicum (Yale University)
  • Critical commentary, scores and partbooks are fully text searchable and may be viewed online, printed, or saved 
• BabelScores
  • Access online scores of contemporary music
  • Browse compositions by instrument, genre, or composer; Advanced Search function filters results by difficulty or the use of extended techniques
  • Object viewer has excellent zoom function; users can download PDF of the score and listen to a recording
• IMSLP / Petrucci Music Library
  • Virtual music library providing free access to public domain music scores
  • Also includes scores for works of contemporary composers who wish to release them to the public free of charge
• Internet Archive
  • Digital collection of public domain materials, including archives and published media from university collections around the world
  • Includes sound recordings, scores, books, and other materials
  • Public domain materials can be downloaded
  • Offers full-text searching within documents and across the collection

A number of music publishers offer free access to online perusal scores for many works in their catalogues. See several examples below, and view the following video for more information: Accessing online perusal scores (6:30).

• Boosey & Hawkes Online Scores
  • View selected works and peruse scores from the Boosey & Hawkes catalogue by registering for a free account
  • Access information about works published in their catalogue, including scoring, duration, premieres, and programme notes
  • Watch and listen to excerpts of interviews with composers and their works
• Scores on Demand, Wise Music Group (via issuu.com)
  • Access digital perusal scores, including selected complete opera and orchestral scores, from members of Wise Music Group: Chester Music, Novello, Schirmer/AMP, Edition Wilhelm Hansen, Unión Musical. 
• Universal Edition
  • View complete perusal scores of selected works from the Universal Edition catalogue.

• Sibley Music Library (Eastman School of Music)
  • Access a large collection of digitized scores and books in the public domain
  • Many items are unique to the Sibley Music Library collection
• Indiana University
  • Digitized collection of select public domain scores from the Cook Music Library's holdings
  • Includes opera, song, orchestral, choral, chamber, piano, and instrumental literature
  • Designed primarily for online viewing, not printing

See also the Music Library's guide to Print and Manuscript Sources of Renaissance Music (1400–1600)

• Orchestral Parts
  • Complete sets of orchestral parts and full scores from the canonic symphonic and operatic repertoire
  • Includes more than 700 masterworks from the Baroque, Classical, Romantic, and Modern periods
  • Parts are available in PDF form and can be downloaded and printed

• Sheet Music Consortium
  • Provides access to 35 collections of sheet music from universities and government organizations from the US, UK and Australia
  • Browse by collection or search across collections
  • Includes thousands of digitized sheet music
  • For more information and search tips, see UCLA's Sheet Music Consortium Guide 
• Library and Archives Canada: Sheet Music from Canada's Past
  • Source of sheet music published in Canada before 1921, selected from the Sheet Music Collection at Library and Archives Canada
  • Includes over 20,000 patriotic and parlour songs, piano pieces, sacred music and novelty numbers, some dating back to the 1700s
  • Besides the Canadian imprints, it also includes music by Canadians or about Canada published anywhere in the world

• Cantus
  • Online database of inventories of chant manuscripts, mostly of the Office, but also includes Mass chants
  • Many chant melodies are transcribed (with and without text), links to digital images of many different manuscripts
• Contemporary Music Score Collection (UCLA)
  • Digital collection of thousands of open-access scores of contemporary music, hosted on UCLA's eScholarship repository
  • For instructions and tips on searching within the collection, visit the UCLA's Contemporary Music Score Collection Guide
  • Users can download scores for free for study purposes, but must gain rights from the composers to record or perform a score
• DIAMM: Digital Image Archive of Medieval Manuscripts
  • Database for inventories, descriptive information and images (or links to online images) of many Medieval and Renaissance manuscripts
  • Includes the Census Catalogue and RISM (see below) entries for many sources
  • Includes music manuscripts of polyphonic music up to c. 1550, as well as English music manuscripts for 1550-1600
  • One of the most important online catalogues for music manuscripts
• Early Music Online
  • Provides access to more than 320 digitized volumes of 16th-century anthologies of printed music (Italy, Germany, France, and England), from holdings at the British Library
  • Digitized volumes contain approximately 10,000 musical compositions, which have been individually indexed
  • Volumes mainly consist of partbooks of vocal polyphony; also include early printed tablatures for keyboard or plucked string instruments
• Thesaurus Musicarum Latinarum (TML)
  • Provides free access to every known Latin text on music from the late antiquity to the seventeenth century, in multiple editions and in transcriptions from original sources
  • An important resource for music historians, theorists and early music performers, to assist in reconstructing, understanding, and performing the music of the past
• New York Philharmonic Digital Archives
  • Online collection includes every document in the New York Philharmonic Archives from 1842 to 1970, in addition to all public documents from 1970 to today
  • Provides access to printed programs, marked conducting scores, marked scores and parts, business documents, contracts, correspondence, and photographs
  • Highlights include 3,000+ scores marked by Leonard Bernstein, Andre Kostelanetz, and others, and 36,000+ music parts marked by Philharmonic musicians
• Harvard Digital Scores Resources
  • Digital collection of manuscripts, first editions, and early editions of music from the 17th to the early 20th century; maintained by the Loeb Music Library, Harvard University
  • Variant editions and annotated proofs of 19th-century operas and related libretti provide scholars a window into the study of historical performance practice

• McGill users only
• Open access resource
• Free resource
• In-library use
• Catalogue record