IMSLP Forums

While the new categorization project and the category walker is a good idea in principle, I'm fighting with it to find scores for a particular instrumentation. In particular, I'm looking for scores featuring string trio (preferrably Violin, Viola and Cello; but 2Violins and Cello would also be fine) plus a vocal solo voice (doesn't matter if S,A,T or B).

How can I use the category walker to find scores with this instrumentation?

Using "For strings with soloists" does not give me any vocal soloist, Using the intersection of Violin+Cello+either S/A/T/B voice gives me several orchestral scores (i.e. many other instruments, too).

Basically, I think there should be a separate page for instrumentation search, with several checkboxes to select the desired instruments. the search would then return all scores with that exact instrumentation... That would make it much easier locating appropriate scores when searching for pieces to perform with a particular group.

In this case, I think we actually don't have anything with this exact instrumentation, but I see your point. It is a bit difficult to find exactly what one wants with a complicated combination like this (I got this far; you can then check the exact instrumentations under the heading 'Vocal'). To get rid of the orchestral scores, you would need to add 'For voices with solo instruments'.

You'd need to select:
[*] Work Genre, then
[*] For voices with solo instruments (browse)
... and look down the page until you come to the combination that you're interested in. For example, there are currently 9 works in the category "For voice, violin, cello, piano", which you can view by clicking on the list.

A handy short-cut method is to type in the IMSLP search box "Category:For voice, violin, cello, piano" (for example), which will take you straight there. The search is case-sensitive, so "Category:For" must be typed exactly as shown, with the names of the instruments all in lower case (apart from the English horn), and separated by commas and spaces.