Choral Public Domain Library

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Choral Public Domain Library (CPDL) is a sheet music archive which focuses on choral and vocal music in the public domain. Music is available for free download in a variety of formats, including score images in PDF and TIFF format, sound files in MIDI and MP3 formats, and in the notation formats supported by various notation programs, including Finale, Finale Allegro, Finale PrintMusic, and Finale Notepad by MakeMusic, Sibelius, by Sibelius, Noteworthy composer, Encore, and the open source GNU Lilypond. Most scores on CPDL are distributed under an open-source license. CPDL archives over 10,000 scores contributed by over 300 editors and composers. It includes large numbers of scores by many composers, especially from the Renaissance period, including nearly complete vocal works by William Byrd and Tomás Luis de Victoria in excellent editions.

CPDL is suggested as a resource by departmental or faculty websites at Kent State University, Northern Illinois University, the University of Oregon, the University of Western Ontario, the Internet Public Library of the University of Michigan, the University at Albany, The State University of New York, by the UCLA Music Library and by inclusion by faculty members in syllabi for courses at Stanford and the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh. It is recommended by the Iowa and Massachusetts chapters of the American Choral Directors Association, and is included in the resource database of Intute, an association of Institutions in the UK.

In 2005 CPDL was ported to wiki format, and is now accessible at ChoralWiki. This has had the benefit of making it easier for users to obtain more features beyond the mere archiving and making scores accessible for download from CPDL, including:

original texts, their sources and translations are available,
cross indexing of choral music using criteria including musical genre, period, and number and voicing of choral parts,
composer information,
description and performance considerations can be included for works, and
contents of collections of choral music.