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What you will find on bestsheetmusicedition.com
On this website, you will find the best sheet music editions for classical music from the leading music publishing companies.
The composers you will find are:
- Johann Sebastian Bach
- Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
- Ludwig Van Beethoven
- Franz Joseph Haydn
- Frederic Chopin
- Claude Debussy
- Alexander Scriabin
- Sergei Rachmaninov
- Franz Liszt
- Franz Schubert
- Robert Schumann
- Maurice Ravel
- George Gershwin
- And many more!
Why is it important to buy the best edition for classical sheet music?
You may ask yourself, “Why do I care about which edition I use for my classical music score,” or “Why should I spend money trying to buy the best edition for the classical piece I am working on?” These are actually very important questions to ask.
Using a literary example, imagine if you are trying to read a Shakespeare Work. You would want to find an edition of Shakespeare that contains commentary notes and chapter summaries, right? If you purchase an edition without commentary notes or aids, it would be very difficult to read the English dialect of that time. With buying sheet music, it is very similar.
The reason so is because there are many bad, fallacious editions out there, and you do not want to accidentally purchase and study one of these scores. It is not only a waste of money, but a waste of time as well, as you spend your precious time learning erroneous sheet music.
These editions can usually be found on “free” sheet music websites, online public domains for sheet music, and sheet music websites where you can print the music on your printer at home. Sheet music from online public domains come from expired copyrights, and these copyrights are not renewed because the editions are full of too many errors.
Many musicians that use scores from “free” sheet music websites, online public domains, and online printed music websites complain that their scores have typos, bad fingerings, bad pedal markings, improper ornaments, and missing details.
Also, if you are competing in serious music competitions, the judges will not like to see that you are using a bad edition for your music.
If you want to be the best, then you need to use the best edition for classical music! Every top competitor in major competitions use the best editions to their music. Is this a coincidence? Think about it!
With this in mind, please take a good look at the information posted on this website. You may find surprising information on the best sheet music editions, and may want to click on the picture of the music so you can follow the link to purchase the score.
To read more about problems with public domain and other sheet music websites, please click on the following links:
Problems with Musicnotes.com
The Leading Edition vs IMSLP
What Makes an Edition a Good Edition?
In the past, what made a music edition a good one differs greatly from the modern definition of a good music edition. In those times, it was a good thing to see many editor commentaries and personal suggestions that may have differed from the composer’s original intent. Musicians wanted to see originality in the editions, and to be able to see the ideas of the editor in the music.
While seeing editor notes can be a very good thing, a problem that occurred is that many editors would not make comments based on the original scores of the music they were commenting. They would often base their comments from another edition that already featured commentary notes from another editor. This would lead to many fallacious commentaries and details.
The change of trend for good editions of sheet music occurred with music editors such as Heinrich Shenker and, notably, Gunter Henle. In around 1948, when Gunter Henle, an accomplished pianist, wanted to make an edition of music that closely followed the original writing of the composer.
By studying the first edition of the music scores, notes of the composer, notes from the students of the composers, and other supplementary sources, an edition was made that attempted to show the composer’s original intent for the score. Many editions now follow this trend, and also add editor notes that try to not conflict with the original writing of the score.
To be short, what makes an edition good with today’s trend is showing the composer’s original intent, having commentary notes such as a preface, fingering suggestions (not always the case as with the Barenreiter edition), and performance practices, and showing what sources were used to determine the composer’s original intent.
Read about the best sheet music publishing companies here.
Hi Jordan!
Just checking your website and saying hi! Looks pretty good now!
Any articles for Prokofiev Sonata editions coming up? lol
Alice
Hi Alice,
Thanks for checking on the site!
I’ll get to Prokofiev eventually lol
To me the best sheet music does not revolve around its accuracy, since I am not a professional musician. I look for copious and intelligent fingering, editions that lie open without closing on you, and paper that won’t tear. I also like editions where the notes aren’t too crowded together. Generally I rate Peters the best, and Dover the worst. I like Kalmus too. Schirmer will usually do, but often has antiquated or useless fingering. With Schirmer I often negliect to put in the fingering, and then develop a lot of bad habits in playing a piece.
Interesting. I think you brought up good points with fingering and spacing. Intuitive spacing allows for easier note and rhythm reading, and is needed when learning pieces with complicated polyrhythms. And of course, having good fingering suggestions helps with playing difficult passages.
I believe that aiming for the composer’s original intent and using the best quality sources for finding the intent is most important when looking at an edition. There are times when an editor adds markings, ornaments, and at worst notes that the composer never wrote, or mistakingly wrote and fixed in the second edition, and this creates an unauthentic playing of the piece that is being learned.
Hello there,
my name is Alessandro and i found this website not too long ago while looking for Ravel’s music scores.
I noticed that your work doesn’t limitate to just one composer so i thought you might be interested in what I’m about to tell you.
Basically about a year ago while i was looking for Chopin’s music scores i found this one website which, amongst other things such as greek or latin or astronomy, has a ‘little’ section dedicated entirely to chopin and his music.
The purpose of this website, as they state, is to recreate ‘the best’ chopin edition through philological means, which they’re doing for free although very slowly.
They have already completed some works and if this sounds like something you would want to check out, I’ll gladly leave the website link here.
The website is in italian but I’m pretty sure you can pick english as well.
Regards.
Hi Alessandro,
Sounds interesting! Could you please send the link?
All the best.
Hi,
Sorry for being late but I’ve been trying to send you the link and apparently this website doesn’t want links to be spammed (fair enough). Anyway here’s the link, ill try to write it in a way so that it doesn’t get recognized as such:
(www)(.audacter)(.it)
Without parenthesis of course.
Take care.