Friedrich Hofmeister Musikverlag
Encyclopedia
Friedrich Hofmeister Musikverlag (abbreviated to Hofmeister) is a publisher of classical music, founded by Friedrich Hofmeister in Leipzig
in 1807. Early listings included composers Ludwig van Beethoven
, Frédéric Chopin
and Franz Liszt
. Hofmeister was the first to publish Mahler's Second Symphony
. Pedagogical works, such as a Violinenschule of Hubert Ries
(1841), are still in use. The company sells sheet music internationally, including Asia and Amerika.
, Luigi Cherubini
, Franz Anton Hoffmeister
, Carl Maria von Weber
, Johann Nepomuk Hummel
, John Field
and Franz Liszt
.
In the early years, he published a balance of music by popular composers, pedagogical material, and young composers such as Robert Schumann
, Chopin, Clara Wieck-Schumann and Hector Berlioz
. Pedagogical volumes included a Gitarrenschule (guitar) by Johann Traugott Lehmann (1811); the Violinenschule (violin) of Hubert Ries
(1841) is still in use, and several volumes of etudes published in the 19th century.
Hofmeister's early publishing practices sometimes brought him into conflict with composers. In 1833 Berlioz objected to publication by Hofmeister of an unauthorized four-handed piano version of his Franc-Juges overture
, saying "your arranger has butchered my score, clipped its wings, ... and sewn it back up again such that I find a ridiculous monster..."
Although Hofmeister maintained friendly as well as professional relations with Liszt for many years, in 1839 his company published a pirated edition of twelve études by Liszt, which led to later disputes with the composer.
After 1847, control of the company largely devolved onto Hofmeister's two sons, Adolph Moritz Hofmeister and Wilhelm Hofmeister.
Hofmeister was one of four major publishers to disseminate the music of Gustav Mahler and the first to publish Mahler's Second Symphony
.
In the twentieth century, the company had various owners until its appropriation by East Germany after World War II. It remains in operation today, with branches in Frankfurt and Leipzig.
The company supports projects of regional importance, such as "Edition Denkmäler Mitteldeutscher Barockmusik". The collection of works by composers from Saxony, Thuringia and Saxony-Anhalt started with a Passion cantata
as a pasticcio
of Altnickol, J. S. Bach
, Graun
, Kuhnau and Telemann in 1997, and includes Gottfried Heinrich Stölzel
's Christmas cantatas (2007) and the Bockes-Passion (2011).
Hofmeister kept the tradition of the publishing the works of new composers, such as Vytautas Barkauskas
, Christoph Förster
, Cecilia McDowall
, Kurt Schwaen
, Siegfried Tiefensee
and Graham Waterhouse
.
Leipzig
Leipzig Leipzig has always been a trade city, situated during the time of the Holy Roman Empire at the intersection of the Via Regia and Via Imperii, two important trade routes. At one time, Leipzig was one of the major European centres of learning and culture in fields such as music and publishing...
in 1807. Early listings included composers Ludwig van Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he remains one of the most famous and influential composers of all time.Born in Bonn, then the capital of the Electorate of Cologne and part of...
, Frédéric Chopin
Frédéric Chopin
Frédéric François Chopin was a Polish composer and virtuoso pianist. He is considered one of the great masters of Romantic music and has been called "the poet of the piano"....
and Franz Liszt
Franz Liszt
Franz Liszt ; ), was a 19th-century Hungarian composer, pianist, conductor, and teacher.Liszt became renowned in Europe during the nineteenth century for his virtuosic skill as a pianist. He was said by his contemporaries to have been the most technically advanced pianist of his age...
. Hofmeister was the first to publish Mahler's Second Symphony
Symphony No. 2 (Mahler)
The Symphony No. 2 by Gustav Mahler, known as the Resurrection, was written between 1888 and 1894, and first performed in 1895. Apart from the Eighth Symphony, this symphony was Mahler's most popular and successful work during his lifetime. It is his first major work that would eventually mark his...
. Pedagogical works, such as a Violinenschule of Hubert Ries
Hubert Ries
Pieter Hubert Ries was a German violinist and composer.Ries was born in Bonn, the son of Franz Anton Ries and the brother of Ferdinand Ries; after studying with his father, Hubert studied in Kassel with Louis Spohr and Moritz Hauptmann...
(1841), are still in use. The company sells sheet music internationally, including Asia and Amerika.
History
Friedrich Hofmeister, born in 1787, first founded a music store in Leipzig in April, 1807. Early listings include composers Ludwig van BeethovenLudwig van Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he remains one of the most famous and influential composers of all time.Born in Bonn, then the capital of the Electorate of Cologne and part of...
, Luigi Cherubini
Luigi Cherubini
Luigi Cherubini was an Italian composer who spent most of his working life in France. His most significant compositions are operas and sacred music. Beethoven regarded Cherubini as the greatest of his contemporaries....
, Franz Anton Hoffmeister
Franz Anton Hoffmeister
Franz Anton Hoffmeister was a German composer and music publisher.Born in Rottenburg am Neckar, he went to Vienna at the age of fourteen to study law...
, Carl Maria von Weber
Carl Maria von Weber
Carl Maria Friedrich Ernst von Weber was a German composer, conductor, pianist, guitarist and critic, one of the first significant composers of the Romantic school....
, Johann Nepomuk Hummel
Johann Nepomuk Hummel
Johann Nepomuk Hummel or Jan Nepomuk Hummel was an Austrian composer and virtuoso pianist. His music reflects the transition from the Classical to the Romantic musical era.- Life :...
, John Field
John Field (composer)
John Field was an Irish pianist, composer, and teacher. He was born in Dublin into a musical family, and received his early education there. The Fields soon moved to London, where Field studied under Muzio Clementi...
and Franz Liszt
Franz Liszt
Franz Liszt ; ), was a 19th-century Hungarian composer, pianist, conductor, and teacher.Liszt became renowned in Europe during the nineteenth century for his virtuosic skill as a pianist. He was said by his contemporaries to have been the most technically advanced pianist of his age...
.
In the early years, he published a balance of music by popular composers, pedagogical material, and young composers such as Robert Schumann
Robert Schumann
Robert Schumann, sometimes known as Robert Alexander Schumann, was a German composer, aesthete and influential music critic. He is regarded as one of the greatest and most representative composers of the Romantic era....
, Chopin, Clara Wieck-Schumann and Hector Berlioz
Hector Berlioz
Hector Berlioz was a French Romantic composer, best known for his compositions Symphonie fantastique and Grande messe des morts . Berlioz made significant contributions to the modern orchestra with his Treatise on Instrumentation. He specified huge orchestral forces for some of his works; as a...
. Pedagogical volumes included a Gitarrenschule (guitar) by Johann Traugott Lehmann (1811); the Violinenschule (violin) of Hubert Ries
Hubert Ries
Pieter Hubert Ries was a German violinist and composer.Ries was born in Bonn, the son of Franz Anton Ries and the brother of Ferdinand Ries; after studying with his father, Hubert studied in Kassel with Louis Spohr and Moritz Hauptmann...
(1841) is still in use, and several volumes of etudes published in the 19th century.
Hofmeister's early publishing practices sometimes brought him into conflict with composers. In 1833 Berlioz objected to publication by Hofmeister of an unauthorized four-handed piano version of his Franc-Juges overture
Les francs-juges
Les francs-juges is the title of an unfinished opera by the French composer Hector Berlioz written to a libretto by his friend Humbert Ferrand in 1826. The opera itself was abandoned by Berlioz, who destroyed most of the music...
, saying "your arranger has butchered my score, clipped its wings, ... and sewn it back up again such that I find a ridiculous monster..."
Although Hofmeister maintained friendly as well as professional relations with Liszt for many years, in 1839 his company published a pirated edition of twelve études by Liszt, which led to later disputes with the composer.
After 1847, control of the company largely devolved onto Hofmeister's two sons, Adolph Moritz Hofmeister and Wilhelm Hofmeister.
Hofmeister was one of four major publishers to disseminate the music of Gustav Mahler and the first to publish Mahler's Second Symphony
Symphony No. 2 (Mahler)
The Symphony No. 2 by Gustav Mahler, known as the Resurrection, was written between 1888 and 1894, and first performed in 1895. Apart from the Eighth Symphony, this symphony was Mahler's most popular and successful work during his lifetime. It is his first major work that would eventually mark his...
.
In the twentieth century, the company had various owners until its appropriation by East Germany after World War II. It remains in operation today, with branches in Frankfurt and Leipzig.
The company supports projects of regional importance, such as "Edition Denkmäler Mitteldeutscher Barockmusik". The collection of works by composers from Saxony, Thuringia and Saxony-Anhalt started with a Passion cantata
Cantata
A cantata is a vocal composition with an instrumental accompaniment, typically in several movements, often involving a choir....
as a pasticcio
Pasticcio
In music, a pasticcio or pastiche is an opera or other musical work composed of works by different composers who may or may not have been working together, or an adaptation or localization of an existing work that is loose, unauthorized, or inauthentic.-Etymology:The term is first attested in the...
of Altnickol, J. S. Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach was a German composer, organist, harpsichordist, violist, and violinist whose sacred and secular works for choir, orchestra, and solo instruments drew together the strands of the Baroque period and brought it to its ultimate maturity...
, Graun
Johann Gottlieb Graun
Johann Gottlieb Graun was a German Baroque/Classical era composer and violinist.Graun was born in Wahrenbrück. His brother Carl Heinrich was also a composer and singer. He studied with J.G. Pisendel in Dresden, and Giuseppe Tartini in Padua. Appointed Konzertmeister in Merseburg in 1726, he taught...
, Kuhnau and Telemann in 1997, and includes Gottfried Heinrich Stölzel
Gottfried Heinrich Stölzel
Gottfried Heinrich Stölzel was a prolific German composer.-Biography:Stölzel grew up in Schwarzenberg, Saxony in the Erzgebirge. From 1707 he was a student of theology in Leipzig, and of Melchior Hofmann, the musical director of the Neukirche. He studied, worked and composed in Breslau and Halle...
's Christmas cantatas (2007) and the Bockes-Passion (2011).
Hofmeister kept the tradition of the publishing the works of new composers, such as Vytautas Barkauskas
Vytautas Barkauskas
Vytautas Barkauskas is a Lithuanian composer and is a Professor of Composition of the Lithuanian Academy of Music, where he has taught since 1961.-Career:...
, Christoph Förster
Christoph Förster
Cristoph Förster was a German composer best known for his Oboe concertos. At the peak of his career, he was the musical director at the court of Merseburg. His works, such as his horn concerto, were published by the Friedrich Hofmeister Musikverlag....
, Cecilia McDowall
Cecilia McDowall
Cecilia McDowall has been described by the International Record Review as having ‘a communicative gift that is very rare in modern music’ and Gramophone has said of her that ‘she has an instinctive understanding of the medium allied to the ability to speak directly to the listener wholly without...
, Kurt Schwaen
Kurt Schwaen
Kurt Schwaen was a German composer.-Professional career:Schwaen studied piano, organ and composition under Fritz Lubrich. From 1929 to 1933 he studied at the universities of Berlin and Breslau, where his teachers included Curt Sachs and Arnold Schering...
, Siegfried Tiefensee
Siegfried Tiefensee
Siegfried Tiefensee was a German musician and conductor.Siegfried Tiefensee was born in Rastenburg, East Prussia, he started his artistic education in his early youth and learned piano, violin and composing...
and Graham Waterhouse
Graham Waterhouse
Graham Waterhouse is an English composer and a cellist. He is known for chamber music and for unusual scoring, such as Piccolo Quintet, Bright Angel for three bassoons and contrabassoon, Chieftain's Salute for Great Highland Bagpipe and string orchestra, and works for speaking voice and cello,...
.
Literature
- Anita Punkt: Der Friedrich Hofmeister Musikverlag. Sein Profil in Geschichte und Gegenwart. dissertation.de, Berlin 2007, ISBN 978-3-86624-304-0 (Dissertation.de 1404)
External links
- Friedrich Hofmeister Musikverlag website, history
- Friedrich Hofmeister Musikverlag state of SaxonySaxonyThe Free State of Saxony is a landlocked state of Germany, contingent with Brandenburg, Saxony Anhalt, Thuringia, Bavaria, the Czech Republic and Poland. It is the tenth-largest German state in area, with of Germany's sixteen states....
- Friedrich Hofmeister Musikverlag muziekuitgevers.com
- Friedrich Hofmeister Musikverlag Music China 2010
- Friedrich Hofmeister the founder, in "The music of Gustav Mahler"