S3: A symbolic music dataset for computational music analysis of symphonies

Symbolic Symphony Set (S3), a high-quality, cross-period dataset comprising four symphonies, 16 movements by Mozart, Beethoven, Dvoˇrák, and Tchaikovsky, containing information on temporal attributes, note events, musical form, and orchestral texture. The dataset includes 285,387 notes, 532 phrases, and 7,290 chords. We consider the following bar-wise (attributes shared across all instrument tracks) and track-wise(specific for each individual instrument track) annotations of classical and romantic symphonies. Our dataset can be utilized for orchestral texture classification, advancing music modeling and generation, and offering new insights into compositional studies and analysis.

Overview

• Digital scores: musicXML, PDF files in <piece_name>
• Annotations: .csv files in <piece_name>/Annotations
• Each piece contains annotations in four categories:
  • Note Events
  • Temporal Attributes
  • Musical Form
  • Orchestral Layers

Corpus and Piece Names

We utilize four symphonies with entire movements by Mozart, Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, and Dvorak, spanning from the classical to the romantic period. Below are the symphonies, their segments, ranges, and abbreviations:

Symphony	Segment #	Range	<piece_name>
Mozart Symphony No. 41 in C major	4	full	mo1, mo2, mo3, mo4
Beethoven Symphony No. 9 in D minor	4	full	be1, be2, be3, be4
Tchaikovsky Symphony No. 6 in B minor	4	full	tc1, tc2, tc3, tc4
Dvorak Symphony No. 9 in E minor	4	full	dv1, dv2, dv3, dv4

Annotations

1. Note Events

Detailed note-level data for each instrument:

Column	Description
onset	The onset (measured in beats) of each note.
offset	The offset (measured in beats) of each note.
midi number	MIDI note number.
duration	Duration in crotchet beats.
staff	Integers from zero for the top staff.
measure	-1 for incomplete measure.
beat in measure	Position in crotchet beats, resetting to 0 at each measure.
instrument	Name of the instrument in the orchestra.

2. Temporal Attributes

This section outlines the dataset's temporal components.

2.1. Measure Number

Calculated measure numbers for each piece.

2.2. Time Signature

Lists onset times, measure numbers, and their corresponding time signatures, indicating where changes occur to reflect structural shifts.

Column	Description
onset	The onset (measured in beats) of each note.
measure	-1 for incomplete measure.
time_signature_quarter_length	Number of quarter notes per complete measure.
time_signature_numerator	Numerator of the time signature, specifying beats per measure.
time_signature_denominator	Denominator of the time signature, indicating the note value for one beat.

2.3. Downbeat

Identifies the first beat of each measure.

3. Musical Form

Includes harmony, form analysis, cadences, and form annotations.

3.1. Harmony

Refer to Harmony Details for detailed descriptions and examples.

Column	Description
onset	In crotchet beats
offset	In crotchet beats
key	Tonality R/r for Major/minor +/- for sharp/flat
degree	1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 +/- before number for sharp/flat / for secondary chord
quality	major triad (M) minor triad (m) diminished triad (d) major 7th (M7) minor 7th (m7) dominant 7th (D7) diminished 7th (d7) half-diminished 7th (h7) augmented (a) augmented 6th (a6)
inversion	0, 1, 2, 3
roman number	Roman numeral notation

3.2. Cadence

Column	Description
onset	The onset (measured in beats) of each cadence.
resolve time	The duration from the first chord's onset to the last chord's onset in the cadence segment.
offset	The offset (measured in beats) of each cadence.
cadence type	AC (Authentic Cadence), HC (Half Cadence), PC (Plagal Cadence), DC (Deceptive Cadence).

3.3. Form Analysis

Column	Description
phrase onset	The onset (measured in beats) of each phrase.
phrase offset	The offset (measured in beats) of each phrase.
theme	A complete musical idea formed by multiple phrases, often including one or more cadences.
section	A major part of a piece, consisting of multiple themes.

4. Orchestral Layers

Layer information for all instruments in symphonies.

Column	Description
onset	The onset (measured in beats) of each layer.
offset	The offset (measured in beats) of each layer.
role	The function of the layer in the orchestral texture.
instrument	Name of the instrument in the orchestra.

Orchestral Texture

Role	Syntax
Melody	mel
Rhythmic accompaniment	rhythm
Harmonic accompaniment	harm
Mixed	rhythm + harm, rhythm + mel, mel + harm, mel + rhythm + harm

Supplementary Material

Note Played

The columns represent the amount of notes played by each instrument in one movement.

Column	Description
n note played	The number of notes played by each instrument in one movement.
instrument	Name of the instrument in the orchestra.