Music publishing in Leipzig. Local networks and international dissemination

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Stefan Keym
• Subject Area: Musicology
• Term: from 2015 to 2016
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 290349602

Since the modern era, music publishers play a decisive (and still often underestimated) role In European music culture. Apart from their main business (production and dissemination of scores), they Influence music life (and especially the formation of repertories and canons of works) also by their program policy, by their financial support of composers, by the publication of a huge part of music periodicals and books on music and by their networking with other music institutions (concert and opera houses, music societies, conservatories etc.). Leipzig is an ideal place to study the key position of music publishers. Since 1800, an important concentration of the German music publishing market took place there and led to a significant professionalization of distribution structures, publicity strategies, printing techniques and editorial principles. Apart from Breltkopf & Härtel (founded already In 1719), many other firms such as C. F. Peters (Bureau de Muslque), Friedrich Hofmeister etc. established themselves and soon began to dominate also the International market Furthermore, several publishers from other towns (In Germany and abroad) got their music engraved and printed in Leipzig. The publishers contributed considerably to the rise of the "music capital" of Leipzig that became a model of bourgeois music culture. They produced the first complete editions of the works of famous composers, influenced the programs of the concerts at the Gewandhaus and published important music journals that advertised and reported on concerts and new publications. - But no other place than Leipzig also demonstrates so dramatically how the great catastrophes of German history In the 20th Century (the two totalitarian states, the Second World War and the division of the country) affected the centuries-old network of the music market and finally led to a serious geographic removal of the center of German music publishing.The present collective publication is the first scientific overall presentation that portrays the development of music publishing In Leipzig from Its beginnings In the 16"" Century up to the present: on the basis of case studies founded on many new sources and from a broad Interdisciplinary perspective. Special attention is paid to the networks between music publishers and other music institutions and to their International cooperation and competition. The 20 articles stem from musicologists, historians, book and media scholars as well as historians of copyright law. They contain also extensive documentary material on repertories and persons related to music publishing. At last, the publication also presents Information on and photographic documents from Sächsisches Staatsarchiv Leipzig that holds the most important collection of sources on Leipzig music publishers.

• DFG Programme: Publication Grants