Highlights from the collection

On one level, nineteenth century piano sheet music often featured unique engravings on their covers. "Racing Down the Rapids" was a brilliant, challenging piece of music intended to describe the experience of the passage from the Thousand Islands to Montreal. Click on the "details" link to find ways to actually listen to the piece.

"A Storm on the Lake" is, like "Racing Down the Rapids", a piece of music designed to tell a story. A close reading of the score suggests that it was originally written for a small string ensemble and later transposed for piano.

There are major collections of sheet music at the Library and Archives Canada and the American Memory project, hosted at the Library of Congress.