About ClassicNotes
ClassicNotes is a free, browseable library of public-domain classical and baroque piano sheet music. Every score in the catalog has entered the public domain — meaning you can legally download, print, share, perform, teach from, record, and even re-publish the music without paying a cent or asking permission.
The catalog focuses tightly on solo keyboard repertoire from roughly 1685 to 1925: the Baroque suites and fugues of Bach and Handel; the Classical sonatas of Haydn, Mozart, and the early Beethoven; the Romantic miniatures of Chopin, Schumann, Schubert, Mendelssohn, and Brahms; the late-Romantic and Impressionist works of Liszt, Rachmaninoff, Debussy, Ravel, and Scriabin. We do not include orchestral, chamber, or vocal scores — only what a pianist can play, alone, at one instrument.
Where the scores come from
Our catalog draws from the IMSLP / Petrucci Music Library, the world's largest open-access archive of public-domain music notation, supplemented by entries from the OpenScore project on MuseScore and the Werner Icking Music Archive. Each piece links back to the canonical source for the highest-resolution PDF we can find, and we credit the editor and engraving where that information is available.
How the catalog is organised
Every piece is sorted by composer, by era, and by difficulty level. You can browse the full library alphabetically, drop into a single composer's page to see everything we have by them, or filter by era to study the Baroque suite or the Romantic character piece in depth. A search field at the top of every page lets you find a work by title, opus number, key, or composer in a single keystroke.
Difficulty levels
We mark each piece beginner, intermediate, advanced, or virtuoso. These are rough guides and not gradings against any conservatory syllabus. A "beginner" Bach minuet is approachable for a serious second-year student; a "virtuoso" Liszt étude is a recital-level concert work. If you are studying with a teacher, ask them to recommend a starting place — the catalog is large and intentionally varied.
What ClassicNotes is not
We do not host or sell modern copyrighted editions, urtext editions, or commercially-licensed transcriptions. We do not sell anything at all. We display advertisements to cover hosting, but the catalog itself, the metadata, and every score linked from it are free in the strictest sense of the word.
A note on editions
Public-domain status applies to the underlying composition, not to every printed edition of it. The PDFs linked from this site are themselves either in the public domain in their country of publication or freely re-distributable under the source's terms. If you are publishing a recording or printed edition derived from these scores, the underlying notes are free for you to use; please credit the editor whose engraving you reference if you reproduce it.
Why the focus on piano?
The piano is the instrument with the deepest, broadest public-domain catalog in Western music. Almost every great composer between Bach and Debussy wrote a substantial body of keyboard work, and most of it is now legally free. Building a focused library — rather than a generalist score archive — lets us make the experience of finding, comparing, and studying piano music as fast and as pleasant as we can.
If you have a correction, a missing piece you'd like to see added, or a high-quality public-domain edition you think should be linked, please write to us through the contact page.