The quest for free sheet music...
Inspired, possibly, by the recent acquisition of a piano for the Burlington Rooms, I have lately had a revived interest in playing pieces new (to me) and old. Since bandwidth, computer memory and printing are things I have in ample supply, while money is not (and let's not forget the instant gratification factor of downloading something right away rather than having to wait for it to come in the mail), I have turned my attention to online sheet music sites.
As anyone who has ever tried to search for free sheet music online knows, such an endeavour is usually dogged by endless advertising, sites that only have music that nobody wants to play or that nobody has ever heard of, sites that claim to be free but don't allow you to download/print anything useful, and sites that purport to have sheet music but are actually directories of other sites -- half of which turn out themselves to be directories.
Purely in my own interests, therefore, I have decided to start keeping a list of the sites I come across that are actually worthwhile going back to. NB I know this makes me guilty of compiling yet another directory of sheet music sites, but I'm not claiming to be a sheet music site, nor am I likely to show up in Google...
Of course, no list of free sheet music sites would be complete without mentioning CPDL, but I'm sure you all know about that already.
Useful general sites
The Werner Icking Sheet Music Archive
Lots of composers, far from comprehensive in each, but relatively well-organised and easy to check. Instrument-wise, bits of everything!
All Piano Scores
Not all, but quite a few! A limited number of composers but very comprehensive in terms of what is there. I haven't found any T&Cs on their website yet, but have downloaded some files already and they seem to be fine.
Mutopia
An assortment of, well, all sorts! Piano, strings, chamber music, some vocal and choral... The joint-effort nature of this site is probably what accounts for the randomness of what's available.
Classicaland
The free sheet music partner site to Kunstderfuge (free MIDI site, not linked here because not useful for sheet music). Mainly piano music but a few assorted other things. Limit of 2 download files (I don't know how they check this and haven't tested it out thoroughly).
"Free Sheet Music Library"
I don't understand why this site has the particular selection of music it does, but... mine not to reason why, mine just to appreciate anything that's available for free. Seemingly has everything ever written for piano by Brahms, Schubert and Schumann, but nobody else! Also has a load of Mozart string quartets and complete Bach cantatas (vocal & piano score).
Aok piano scores
The complete piano works of: BACH BRAHMS CHOPIN GRIEG KORSAKOV MUSSORGSKY NAZARETH RACHMANINOFF SCHUBERT SCHUMANN. (Nazareth? Who is Nazareth??) Not organised in the most user-friendly way (often by Volumes/Parts of Complete Works rather than individual pieces/collections, so you need to know what's where or else download the whole lot) but certainly comprehensive! I suspect I will be downloading many of these when I am on my computer with more memory.
Kreusch Sheet Music
A decent collection that doesn't tend to come up on searches -- I only found it when I started this systematic survey, but it has quite a good range. Mostly piano, but a few others. Has (some) Ravel! (I was particularly looking for Miroirs and the Sonatine; Ravel isn't long out of copyright, so some otherwise very comprehensive paid sites such as the Virtual Sheet Music Archive don't have any yet.)
Bach piano collection
Wot it says. I'm sure this site must have other mines of music, but haven't managed to find them yet...
Rowy
A bunch of stuff for a bunch of different instruments including piano, cello, violin, voice. Use the list views to see what's available and then search.
Freesheetmusic.net
An assortment of bits and pieces including some string ensemble stuff (Haydn, Mozart, Vivaldi etc).
Free-scores.com
I'm sure there are some useful things here, though the site layout makes it hard to navigate and find things...
Pianophiles
Odds and ends -- limited number of composers, unpredictable as to what works are available. But genuinely free.
Violin Sheet Music
A small collection of free violin sheet music. I don't know if this is ever going to be any use to me, but may as well list it here for reference.
Not quite as useful but still worth remembering sites
The International Music Score Library Project
Apparently this is scheduled to come back online on July 1! Huzzah! Once it does, this link will surely be upgraded to "useful".
Zimmusic
Unfortunately this site (says it) requires Noteworthy, which I can't be bothered to install. But how can you resist a way of arranging the music that lets you choose All The Composers, All the Centuries and All The Nationalities; or a plea like this? "We offer you free sheet music, please offer us a little of your time : help us to make known the site !" Maybe one day I will get NWC Viewer. Just not today.
The Sheet Music Archive
Not a bad selection of stuff, but most of the good things are locked to subscribers; and I don't think the catalogue is good enough to be worth subscribing to.
Paid sites that might be worth subscribing to
I'm considering getting a subscription to one or both of Piano Street or the Virtual Sheet Music site. Unsurprisingly, the former has a more in-depth piano collection, but the latter has loads of other stuff I might like to have. My systematic search has managed to turn up a lot of the random piano pieces I was looking for, so I may rethink my approach to this.
Not a free site as such, but dead useful
Schubertline
For all singers! This site has loads of vocal music (arias, lieder, some duets etc) available using Scorch. It costs to print, but you can view the entire thing page-by-page on screen for free, as well as transpose to any key; and hear MIDI playbacks, if that's your kind of thing.
Things I was looking for and found
* Lizst - Consolations
* John Field - Nocturnes
* Schumann - Waldszenen
* Scarlatti - Sonata Pastorale
* Schubert - Impromptus
* Ravel - Alborada del Gracioso, Sonatine
Things I am still looking for
... after checking out the free sites above:
* Ravel - the rest of Miroirs
* Ravel - string quartet in F
* Schubert - string quintet in C
I will update this post if I come across any more good links. If you know of any other good online sources for free sheet music, please comment and let me know!
As anyone who has ever tried to search for free sheet music online knows, such an endeavour is usually dogged by endless advertising, sites that only have music that nobody wants to play or that nobody has ever heard of, sites that claim to be free but don't allow you to download/print anything useful, and sites that purport to have sheet music but are actually directories of other sites -- half of which turn out themselves to be directories.
Purely in my own interests, therefore, I have decided to start keeping a list of the sites I come across that are actually worthwhile going back to. NB I know this makes me guilty of compiling yet another directory of sheet music sites, but I'm not claiming to be a sheet music site, nor am I likely to show up in Google...
Of course, no list of free sheet music sites would be complete without mentioning CPDL, but I'm sure you all know about that already.
Useful general sites
The Werner Icking Sheet Music Archive
Lots of composers, far from comprehensive in each, but relatively well-organised and easy to check. Instrument-wise, bits of everything!
All Piano Scores
Not all, but quite a few! A limited number of composers but very comprehensive in terms of what is there. I haven't found any T&Cs on their website yet, but have downloaded some files already and they seem to be fine.
Mutopia
An assortment of, well, all sorts! Piano, strings, chamber music, some vocal and choral... The joint-effort nature of this site is probably what accounts for the randomness of what's available.
Classicaland
The free sheet music partner site to Kunstderfuge (free MIDI site, not linked here because not useful for sheet music). Mainly piano music but a few assorted other things. Limit of 2 download files (I don't know how they check this and haven't tested it out thoroughly).
"Free Sheet Music Library"
I don't understand why this site has the particular selection of music it does, but... mine not to reason why, mine just to appreciate anything that's available for free. Seemingly has everything ever written for piano by Brahms, Schubert and Schumann, but nobody else! Also has a load of Mozart string quartets and complete Bach cantatas (vocal & piano score).
Aok piano scores
The complete piano works of: BACH BRAHMS CHOPIN GRIEG KORSAKOV MUSSORGSKY NAZARETH RACHMANINOFF SCHUBERT SCHUMANN. (Nazareth? Who is Nazareth??) Not organised in the most user-friendly way (often by Volumes/Parts of Complete Works rather than individual pieces/collections, so you need to know what's where or else download the whole lot) but certainly comprehensive! I suspect I will be downloading many of these when I am on my computer with more memory.
Kreusch Sheet Music
A decent collection that doesn't tend to come up on searches -- I only found it when I started this systematic survey, but it has quite a good range. Mostly piano, but a few others. Has (some) Ravel! (I was particularly looking for Miroirs and the Sonatine; Ravel isn't long out of copyright, so some otherwise very comprehensive paid sites such as the Virtual Sheet Music Archive don't have any yet.)
Bach piano collection
Wot it says. I'm sure this site must have other mines of music, but haven't managed to find them yet...
Rowy
A bunch of stuff for a bunch of different instruments including piano, cello, violin, voice. Use the list views to see what's available and then search.
Freesheetmusic.net
An assortment of bits and pieces including some string ensemble stuff (Haydn, Mozart, Vivaldi etc).
Free-scores.com
I'm sure there are some useful things here, though the site layout makes it hard to navigate and find things...
Pianophiles
Odds and ends -- limited number of composers, unpredictable as to what works are available. But genuinely free.
Violin Sheet Music
A small collection of free violin sheet music. I don't know if this is ever going to be any use to me, but may as well list it here for reference.
Not quite as useful but still worth remembering sites
The International Music Score Library Project
Apparently this is scheduled to come back online on July 1! Huzzah! Once it does, this link will surely be upgraded to "useful".
Zimmusic
Unfortunately this site (says it) requires Noteworthy, which I can't be bothered to install. But how can you resist a way of arranging the music that lets you choose All The Composers, All the Centuries and All The Nationalities; or a plea like this? "We offer you free sheet music, please offer us a little of your time : help us to make known the site !" Maybe one day I will get NWC Viewer. Just not today.
The Sheet Music Archive
Not a bad selection of stuff, but most of the good things are locked to subscribers; and I don't think the catalogue is good enough to be worth subscribing to.
Paid sites that might be worth subscribing to
I'm considering getting a subscription to one or both of Piano Street or the Virtual Sheet Music site. Unsurprisingly, the former has a more in-depth piano collection, but the latter has loads of other stuff I might like to have. My systematic search has managed to turn up a lot of the random piano pieces I was looking for, so I may rethink my approach to this.
Not a free site as such, but dead useful
Schubertline
For all singers! This site has loads of vocal music (arias, lieder, some duets etc) available using Scorch. It costs to print, but you can view the entire thing page-by-page on screen for free, as well as transpose to any key; and hear MIDI playbacks, if that's your kind of thing.
Things I was looking for and found
* Lizst - Consolations
* John Field - Nocturnes
* Schumann - Waldszenen
* Scarlatti - Sonata Pastorale
* Schubert - Impromptus
* Ravel - Alborada del Gracioso, Sonatine
Things I am still looking for
... after checking out the free sites above:
* Ravel - the rest of Miroirs
* Ravel - string quartet in F
* Schubert - string quintet in C
I will update this post if I come across any more good links. If you know of any other good online sources for free sheet music, please comment and let me know!