Music

The Bpi offers you in its Music area a choice of more than 25,000 CDs and musical vinyls as well as reference books and magazines, two digital pianos and music scores.

Listen to music

The Music department selects the best music news, in all genres and from all countries. You will thus be able to choose from among different interpretations of a work of classical music, find the flagship rock albums of the 60’s, discover the diversity of Brazilian music, vibrate to the sound of the new electro scene… The Bpi also pays particular attention to contemporary musical creation by offering a large collection of experimental music.

In all, more than 25,000 CDs and vinyls are available in the Music area, to be listened to on dedicated stations and turntables. You can also find the Bpi’s music collection on Tympan, the Bpi’s online listening service available on all the computers in the library or on your personal devices by connecting to wifi-bpi.

Read books about music

Constantly updated, the collection of books includes many reference works and covers the different fields and musical genres: from Gregorian chant to electronic music, from raï to rap, from opera to musical comedy, rock music and its derivatives. (from hard rock to heavy metal)

To keep up to date with current music, visitors can leaf through our magazines: the Bpi subscribes to major journals in the field such as Diapason, Rock and Folk, Tsugi, Jazz Magazine, but also to more confidential titles such as Volume! or Wax Poetics.

To deepen research, a bibliographic site, the International Directory of Musical Literature, allows you to explore French and foreign journals. The remarkable Grove Dictionary of Music is also available online in a constantly updated version at Oxford Music Online.

Play music

It is possible to play the piano at the Bpi : two digital pianos can be used free of charge by booking them at the information desk of the Music space for a one-hour session. They have two headsets so that two people can play them. These pianos feel very much like a classic piano, enabling visitors to play musical scores in the Bpi’s collection, practice doing scales, improvise or even play their own compositions…