These scrolling music manuscripts are the internet at its most beautiful

The Scrolling Bach project offers something very, very special for the eye as well as the ear.

Enthralling music and mesmerising manuscript. YouTube user (and self-proclaimed Bach guru) gerubach has matched concertos, suites and partitas to their scores in real time to create beautiful unions of sound and notation. 

Originally the project aimed to offer Bach's output in a scrolling score format with a mix of original manuscript and printed scores. The selection has since expanded into scores by other classical greats and fascinating pieces from minimalist and avant-guard composers, all with fascinating results. Here's a selection of the finest:

Bach: Cello Suite No. 1

Your chance to sit back and indulge in the beauty of the writing on the page. Here's Bach's original manuscript (probably notated by his wife Anna-Magdalena) with printed score below. It's the great Yo-Yo Ma playing on his 1733 Montagnana cello too. Very special indeed.

Bach: Partita for Violin No. 2 

From solo cello to solo violin, we take things up a gear with the baroque master's somewhat more virtuosic rhapsodies for the fiddle. Bach himself was a highly-accomplished violin virtuoso and for many years these were considered unplayable. Grab some popcorn and just wait for the Chaconne.

Beethoven: Symphony No. 5 in C minor

From Bach to Beethoven, and the music that spanned the classical and the Romantic. You won't need the score for the first four notes of this one. But after that, things get interesting when revealed in full orchestral score. We'll see you in 35 minutes.

Ravel: Boléro 

It's time for every percussionist's moment of glory. With this score you can see the slowly unfolding parts of the Impressionistic composer's masterclass in orchestration, all over that resolute pattern on the sneer drum.  

Steve Reich: Clapping Music 

We dive into the minimalist scores. Steve Reich's 1972 duet Clapping Music is the simplest idea - a one-bar rythmn shifting one eighth note at eight bar intervals. The great thing is that it's even simpler to explain in this scrolling visual. Just don't ask us to perform it.