Is there a Project Gutenberg for public domain sheet music?

June 20, 2004 6:48 AM

Is there something like Project Gutenberg for public domain sheet music? I'm specifically interested in classical, particularly orchestral scores. Dover Books do some very cheap ones, but I'm a big fan of free whenever possible!
posted by PinkStainlessTail to media & arts (5 comments total)

Gutenberg has the sheet music subproject and the other large scale project I know of is the Mutopia project which does allow you to browse by composer, instrument and style. I'm not sure how this compares to archives like the free sheet musci project or some of the other resources available at this location.
posted by jessamyn at 7:00 AM on June 20, 2004

After about an hour of failing to display musicxml, could someone give me a hint or two? Thanks.
posted by mischief at 9:10 AM on June 20, 2004

I tried MusicEase, but it does not seem to handle such large files as on Gutenberg at all well.
posted by mischief at 10:12 AM on June 20, 2004

The Choral Public Domain Library does pretty much what its name suggests.
posted by monkey closet at 2:00 AM on June 21, 2004

Oh, and a word of warning about Dover - while they're excellent value, they're not always the best editions, particularly where they're either:

1. Earlier music in strange 19th century editions (I have some very odd Dover Bach)
2. Plates from early editions of things that have subsequently been revised - I have some romantic music that differs quite dramatically from the more common versions.

posted by monkey closet at 3:58 AM on June 21, 2004