Guides: Music Research Guide: Books & Scores

Repertoire Guides

Looking for repertoire suggestions? Check out our Instrumental and Vocal Performance pages for recommended resources to help you find music for your voice type, instrument, or ensemble.

Browsing the Shelf

Use the Library of Congress Classification System to help you navigate the stacks! All of our Music items (including books, scores, CDs, and more) are located on the first floor of Mullen Library, in Stacks 1 North.

Subclass M - Scores

Subclasses ML and MT - Music Literature

M2: Monuments, sources, reprints, etc.
M3: Complete and collected works of individual composers
M5-M1450: instrumental music
- M6-M175: solo instrument
  - M20: piano
  - M40: stringed instruments
  - M60: wind instruments
- M177: duos
- M300: trios
- M400-900: quartets-nonets
- M1000: orchestral, band, etc.
M1495-M2199: vocal music
- M1497-M1998: secular
  - M1500: dramatic (opera)
  - M1528: choral
  - M1611: songs for one voice
  - M1627: special songs (including folk)
- M1999-M2199: sacred
  - M2000: oratorios, masses, services, etc.
  - M2018: cantatas, anthems, part-songs, etc.
  - M2115: hymn, psalm, choral books
  - M2147: liturgy and ritual

ML13: Almanacs, directories, etc.
ML48: librettos
ML50: librettos
ML55: essays, papers, addresses, etc.
ML86: portraits, pictorial works
ML90: writings on musicians
ML93: manuscripts, autographs, facsimiles
- ML96.5: facsimiles of composers' works
ML100: dictionaries, encyclopedias
ML111: bibliography
- ML128: by topic (e.g., ML128.S-, string music)
- ML134: by composer
ML159: history and criticism
- ML162: by chronological period
- ML200: by country
- ML385: by composer (i.e., biography)
ML410: biographies of composers
ML460: instruments and instrumental music
ML1400: vocal music
ML3781: national (i.e., "folk") music
ML3800: philosophy and physics
- ML3805: acoustics and physics
- ML3845: aesthetics and aesthetic criticism
MT2: history and criticism of theory
MT6-MT950: instruction and study
- MT6: general, including appreciation of music
- MT40: composition
- MT70: orchestration
- MT90: analytic guides to music
- MT170: instrumental techniques
- MT820: singing and voice culture

Online Scores

Classical Scores Library This link opens in a new window
Classical Scores Library is a series of four volumes with a mission to provide a reliable and authoritative source for scores of the classical canon, as well as a resource for the discovery of lesser-known contemporary works. The collections encompass all major classical musical genres and time periods from the Middle Ages to the 21st century. With full, study, piano, and vocal scores, this comprehensive collection will enhance the study of music history, performance, composition and theory for a variety of scholars.
International Music Score Library Project This link opens in a new window
International Music Score Library Project (IMSLP) attempts to create a virtual library containing all public domain musical scores, as well as scores from composers who are willing to share their music with the world without charge.

Collected Works of Select Composers

Johann Sebastian Bach (Gesellschaft)	George Friedrich Handel (Hallische Händel-Ausgabe)	Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (Werke) (Neue Mozart-Ausgabe)	Franz Schubert
Ludwig van Beethoven (Gesamtausgabe)	Josquin	Carl Nielsen	Robert Schumann
Hector Berlioz (Werke) (New)	Franz Liszt (Musikalische Werke)	Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina	Heinrich Schütz
Johannes Brahms	Felix Mendelssohn (Kritische durchgesehene Ausgabe)	Jean-Philipe Rameau	Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck
Frederic Chopin	Claudio Monteverdi	Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov	Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

Special Collections

These collections are housed in closed stacks (except for the Dom Mocquereau Chant Microfilm Collection, which is located in the Microform Area). Because these collections contain material segregated from the general collection due to ephemeral nature, rarity, size, or other conditions, items within them cannot be found using SearchBox.

Choral Music Collection Database This link opens in a new window
The Choral Music Collection contains over 4,000 choral pieces, published in single octavo scores, from all time periods, languages, and styles, both sacred and secular.

Note: This database does not index our expansive collection of larger choral works , which are included in the library catalog.
Sheet Music Collection Database This link opens in a new window
The Sheet Music Collection consists of nearly 10,000 published titles, including both single sheets of music and songbook compilations.
Its strengths are in two areas:

• 19th- to mid-20th-century songs (classical, popular, stage, and sacred) supplementing the library’s catalogued holdings with offerings in different keys and arrangements; focuses on material not in the public domain

• Popular songs that date primarily from the 1970s to the 1990s, including pop, rock, country, and contemporary Christian music

Though the collection does contain some pre-1923 public domain material, it focuses mainly on copyrighted material unavailable elsewhere. For public domain sheet music in digital format, visit Sheet Music Collections.

Note: This database does not index our comprehensive collection of musical theater piano-vocal scores, which are included in ALADIN, the online catalog.
Latin American Music Collection Database This link opens in a new window
The Latin American Music Collection contains over 2,000 scores by Latin American composers, including commercial publications, manuscripts, and reproductions of manuscripts provided by the composers themselves. It is housed in the Latin American Center for Graduate Studies in Music and may be consulted there or in the Mullen Library.

Founded in 1984, The Latin American Center for Graduate Studies in Music (informally called the Latin American Music Center, or LAMC), is a cooperative venture between The Benjamin T. Rome School of Music, the Organization of American States, and the Inter-American Music Council.
The LAMC aims to promote the study, research, and development of Latin American music. The core of the LAMC collection is the music collection donated in 1984 by the Organization of American States (formerly Pan American Union) with a 2008 addition of the music collection from the Brazilian American Cultural Institute (BACI). Donations have been accepted from composers, performers, publishers, and arts organizations and continue to be gratefully received.
Note: In addition to the LAMC archival and research material, a significant portion of books and scores with a Latin American focus are housed within Mullen Library-Music collection including items in the Dr. Robert L. Parker Collection, acquired in 2012.
Dom Mocquereau Collection Database This link opens in a new window
The microfilming of seminal liturgical chant manuscripts began in 1974, with generous funding from the Dom Mocquereau Foundation. This unique microfilm collection of nearly 500 manuscript reproductions is often cited in scholarly musicological journals. The collection is most used by faculty, visiting scholars, and advanced graduate students whose research may involve the comparison of chant repertories or the readings of a chant as they appear in multiple sources.

The database is placed here at the disposal of colleagues in accordance with the aims of the International Musicological Society Study Group "Cantus Planus," which promotes cooperation in computer-assisted projects and the exchange of data in electronic form. Models for the collection include the archive of microfilms developed by Bruno Staeblein at the University of Erlangen and the collection of photographic reproductions of chant manuscripts at the Abbey of Solesmes. Those interested in this collection will want to visit the CANTUS: A Database for Latin Ecclesiastical Chant, which indexes the manuscripts and includes many high resolution and easy-to-use images of complete manuscripts.

The Dom Mocquereau microfilm collection is housed in Mullen Library, where microfilm readers and printers are available. The collection is arranged by call number, and a print version of the catalog is shelved with the collection.