Otto E. Albrecht Music Library

Today's Hours:

8:30am - 12am | Library Hours

Phone:

215-898-6248

Email:

musiclib@pobox.upenn.edu

Location:

Van Pelt-Dietrich Library Center, 4th floor west
3420 Walnut Street
Philadelphia, PA 19104-6206
| Directions

Looking at special collections in music

The Albrecht Music Library serves the research and teaching needs of Penn’s Music Department and the Penn music community.

Hours

Using the Music Library

Schedule a time to meet with a music librarian

The sculpture of man's head at Eugene Ormandy Music and Media Center

Visit Us

What you need to know to visit the Music Library.

Photo of the entrance to the Eugene Ormandy Music and Media Center

Use the Ormandy Center

How to find, visit, and use the resources available in the Eugene Ormandy Music and Media Center.

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Research Resources & Collections

Eugene Ormandy Collection

Eugene Ormandy served as conductor of the Philadelphia Orchestra from 1937 to 1980 and was the beloved architect of the "Philadelphia sound." The Ormandy Collection includes music scores; papers and correspondence; programs; photographs; recordings; oral histories; and audiovisual material.

Eugene Ormandy, ca 1950

Beethoven Cabinet

The cabinet, when in Beethoven's possession, was located in the Schwarzspanierhaus ("the house of the black-robed spaniards") in Vienna. Beethoven moved into the house on October 15, 1825 (Memories of Beethoven, p. 131, n. 104) and lived in an apartment on the second floor until his death in 1827.

The Beethoven Cabinet in the Otto E. Albrecht Music Library imposed over a music score.

Philadelphia Orchestra Collections

The records of The Philadelphia Orchestra Association document its activities from 1900 to 2023 through administrative records, concert programs, photographs, scrapbooks and audio and visual recordings.

Founding documents of The Philadelphia Orchestra, including charter and bylaws

Explore More Collections

At the core of the collection are scores in both scholarly and performing editions, literature on music history and theory, ethnomusicology, jazz, popular music, and microforms of primary sources.

Oxford Music Online

The authoritative resource for music research with over 52,000 articles written by nearly 9,000 scholars charting the diverse history and cultures of music around the globe.

Garland Encyclopedia of World Music

A comprehensive online resource devoted to music research of all the world's peoples. Each volume contains an overview of a geographic region, a survey of its musical heritage, and a description of specific musical genres, practices, and performances.

Music Periodicals Database

A music journal resource with more than half a million indexed articles, plus detailed abstracts and full text from 1874 to current, covering the scholarly to the popular.

RLM Abstracts of Music Literature

Répertoire International de Littérature Musicale (RILM) publishes a comprehensive bibliography of writings on music serving the global music research community. Today RILM Abstracts of Music Literature has over 1,000,000 records in 143 languages from 178 countries.

WorldCat

Find and request musical scores from libraries all over the world.

BabelScores

Read thousands of contemporary musical scores online.

Classical Scores Library

Find in-copyright digital scores of the classical canon, as well as a resource for the discovery of lesser-known contemporary works.

Naxos Music Library

The world´s largest online classical music library, offering streaming access to more than 188,285 albums with more than 2,890,503 tracks of both standard and rare repertoire.

News, Exhibits, Events

Event Series: Music in the Stacks

A collaboration between the Albrecht Music Library and the Department of Music, Music in the Stacks brings Penn musicians into library spaces for drop-in, public performances throughout the semester.

Musicians perform in the Penn Libraries

Online Exhibit: Re-covering the Ney Collection

“Most of the books that have been recently published in Turkey on how to play the Ney make direct reference to the oldest Ney in the world kept by the University of Pennsylvania” --Juan Castrillón

The online exhibit discusses and documents an exhibit presented in 2020 in the Marian Anderson Gallery.

Juan Castrillon holding a ney in the stacks

Browse All Events

Find out about the engaging events, compelling lectures, and skill-building workshops happening across the Penn Libraries.

Penn Flutes choir.

Staff

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Give us feedback

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Floor Plans

 

Accessibility

The accessible entrance of Van Pelt-Dietrich Library Center opens into the Goldstein Undergraduate Study Center. This entrance is on the ground floor of the building facing Blanche P. Levy Park and College Hall. A wheelchair accessible doorbell is located on the railing leading toward the door.

Additional Information

Learn more about accessibility services in the Van Pelt-Dietrich Library Center

Accessible Entrance

Accessible entrance on the ground floor. A brick walk leads from the north side of Levy Park to the accessible door. At the end of the walk are 2 doors. The accessible door is on the right.

Directions to the accessible entrance:   Word   |   PDF