Skip to Main Content

Music Citations: Turabian/Chicago Style: Scores

This guide will assist with formatting music citations using the Turabian/Chicago style. For more info, consult Turabian Manual: MUS REFPN203.T8 2007 or consult Chicago Manual online at: http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/16/contents.html

For the whole work. Citation Format B=bibliography N=footnote

For the whole work:

Cite your musical score as you would a book. To cite a score from a multivolume set/collected edition, scroll down.

B: Composer Last Name, First. Name of Musical Work. City, State (if city isn’t well known): Publisher, Year.

Example: Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus. Eine Kleine Nachtmusik, K. 525. Bryn Mawr, PA: Theodore Presser, 1960.

N1Author First Name Last, Title of Work (City: Publisher, Year), page numbers.

Example: 1Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Eine Kleine Nachtmusik, K. 525. (Bryn Mawr, PA: Theodore Presser, 1960), 1-3.

Song in an Anthology

Song in an Anthology

Cite a song from an anthology/collection as you would a book chapter.

B: Wolf, Hugo. “Lebe wohl.” In The Lieder Anthology, edited by Virginia Saya and Richard Walters, 33-34. Milwaukee, WI: Hal Leonard, 2003.

N: 1Hugo Wolf, “Lebe wohl,” in The Lieder Anthology, eds. Virginia Saya and Richard Walters (Milwaukee, WI: Hal Leonard, 2003): 33-34.

Tips!

If more than one city is listed, you usually go with the first one, which is typically the "home" or flagship of the publisher.

If you cannot find a year of publication on the score itself, then look up the item in the library online catalog. If the year is listed there, use it. If the year is indicated as 19? then use that. Your librarian can help you with this. 

Professors at DePauw prefer that foreign titles remain in original languages. If your score reads Le Nozze di Figaro, do *not* translate to The Marriage of Figaro. If your title page reads Klavier Konzert, then do *not* translate to Piano Concerto.

For further examples, please consult: Kate L. Turabian, A Manual for Writers of Term Papers, Theses, and Dissertations, 9th ed., rev. by Wayne C. Booth, Gregory G. Colomb, Joseph M. Williams, et al. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2018).