Instrument
Orchestra sheet music
12,250 titles in the index · page 1 of 200
The single most expensive mistake in this part of the catalogue is buying a score when what you needed was a set of parts. They are different products at wildly different prices, and a listing that says "orchestra" may mean either.
The listing below covers full and study scores, parts and part sets, arrangements for school and amateur orchestra, and solo works with orchestral accompaniment.
Find a title, then open its sheet music page to compare editions and arrangements. Instrument tags describe catalog listings; check the edition for its exact scoring.
Buying guide
What to know before you buy
Score, study score, parts, set
A full score shows every instrument on its own stave. One conductor needs one. A study score is the same content printed small — for reading, not conducting.
A part is one player's line. A set of parts is the whole orchestra's worth, and is what actually costs money: several hundred pounds is normal, and for material still in copyright it is often hire-only rather than for sale.
If a listing gives a price in single figures for a symphony, you are looking at a study score. If it runs to hundreds, it is a set. If it says "hire" or "rental", the publisher will not sell it to you at any price and the transaction goes through their hire library.
Transposing parts, and why the score looks wrong
Orchestral scores print transposing instruments at written pitch, not sounding pitch — clarinet in B♭ and A, horn in F, trumpet in B♭, cor anglais in F. A score therefore looks as though several instruments are in the wrong key, and they are not.
Some twentieth-century scores are printed at concert pitch throughout and say so on the first page. Both conventions are in use, and a conductor reading one as the other will hear something unexpected at the first rehearsal.
What is free
Everything written before roughly 1930 is out of copyright, and public-domain archives hold scans of the old collected editions — the whole standard repertoire, scores and parts, at no cost. Those scans are often the nineteenth-century performing editions with their own errors, and orchestral librarians will tell you a bad part costs more rehearsal time than a good edition costs money. For reading and study, they are excellent.
Common questions
- Does buying an orchestral score include the parts?
- No. A score is the conductor's copy. Parts are sold or hired separately as a set, and the set is usually the expensive item.
- What does "hire only" mean?
- The publisher rents the performance material rather than selling it, which is standard for works still in copyright. You cannot buy those parts at any price; you apply to the publisher's hire library.
- Why do the clarinet and horn look like they are in the wrong key?
- They are transposing instruments and scores print them at written pitch. A horn part in F sounds a fifth below what is written. Some modern scores print everything at concert pitch and state so on the first page.