Score subscription service?

Sara Bakker

Dear Colleagues,

I'm teaching a class in which I would like students to have access to many scores that are still under copyright.  The pieces I'm interested in are not contained in just one or two anthologies, and the music library at my institution is sadly lacking in modern scores.  I'm sure many of you face the same problems!

I'm wondering if any of you know of a score-subscription service, similar to Spotify, where one can pay a monthly fee to have ongoing access to copyrighted materials.  If not, does anyone know if something like this is in the works?

Thanks in advance for your advice!

 

Sara

Utah State University

Megan Lavengood

I don't know of such a thing; I just wanted to chime in and say what a GREAT idea this would be!

Amy Bauer

Hi Sarah,

The closest such service I know of is Alexander Street, who claim to have 47,000+ scores available as part of their audio subscription service (I have accessed only Universal Edition scores, so I'm not sure whatever else they've licensed) My colleagues here who teach improvised are planning on establishing a central location where composers could offer their scores for download at for a modest fee, as some do on their individual websites.

Carson Farley

I have found many scores on the IMSLP.org site including books, texts, etudes, historical scores, chamber music, solo music, etc. For example - a theory book by Tchaikovsky, Ancient Dances score by Respighi, cello etudes and solo works, Vivaldi scores, chamber music, etc.  

 

imslp.org

Timothy Francis

I also occasionally use the Alexander Street service for score access in my teaching.  They have a limited number of non-pd scores, so the usefullness of the service is also limited, depending on whether or not they have scores for the composers and/or pieces you're looking for.  Compared to a print anthology, however, it's a large resource and can be very useful where the scores wouldn't be available elsewhere.