The music collection contains over 300,000 musical scores and the largest collection of music research resources in Australia.
Nicholson & Cos Australian musical magazine. No. 36, Christmas number
1896 songbook for voice and piano.
Nicholson & Cos Australian musical magazine. No. 36, Christmas number
1896 songbook for voice and piano.
The song of Australia, 1859 4
Words by Mrs C.J. Carleton ; music by Carl Linger
You can find:
- Australian published and unpublished sheet music covering a range of musical styles, some digitised
- historical and contemporary music, in notated form
- archives of composers, performers and music organisations
- memorabilia and photographs capturing musical performance and music trade
- archival sound recordings of folk music and dance
- music information to support research and study
- access a keyboard in the Special Collections Reading Room.
The Library primarily collects music in notated form, though not generally multiple vocal or instrumental parts. Commercially recorded music is held at Australia’s National Film and Sound Archive.
Highlights
- Australian Sheet Music - highly decorative covers of sheet music documenting performing arts history. Includes advertisements for stage and cinema productions, the latest musical instruments and recordings.
- State Theatre Collection – over 13,000 published orchestrations, band arrangements and instrumental music composed or arranged for small orchestra to accompany silent movies. Primarily used in Australian film theatres from 1900 to the 1930s. Many record film screening dates and distribution stamps.
- Symphony Australia collection - a collection of chamber, choral, operatic, orchestral, piano and vocal works by Australian composers and arrangers from colonial music to the 1970s. Includes scores and parts used by the ABC for performance and original manuscripts.
- Helm collection – c.7000 scores of 18th and 19th century European and English vocal music.
