History of music publishing - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Early publishing

Music publishing did not begin on a large scale until the mid-15th century, with the first printing of music

Music

Music is an art form whose medium is sound and silence. Its common elements are pitch , rhythm , dynamics, and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture...

. The earliest existence of printed music dates from about 1465, and then only liturgical chants were printed. This date falls shortly after the printing of the Gutenberg Bible

Gutenberg Bible

The Gutenberg Bible was the first major book printed with a movable type printing press, and marked the start of the "Gutenberg Revolution" and the age of the printed book. Widely praised for its high aesthetic and artistic qualities, the book has an iconic status...

and the invention of movable type

Movable type

Movable type is the system of printing and typography that uses movable components to reproduce the elements of a document ....

.

Before the advent of Gutenberg and his printing press, all music was copied out by hand, an expensive and time-consuming process. Consequently, little music prior to the 16th century remains; the majority that is extant is sacred music of the Catholic Church. The priests and monks of the church spent large amounts of time painstakingly copying the chants for every day of the church year. We have very little secular music prior to 1500. The collections we do have were owned by wealthy noblemen, such as the Squarcialupi Codex

Squarcialupi Codex

The Squarcialupi Codex is an illuminated manuscript compiled in Florence, Italy in the early 15th century...

, of Italian Trecento

Trecento

The Trecento refers to the 14th century in Italian cultural history.Commonly the Trecento is considered to be the beginning of the Renaissance in art history...

music, or the Chantilly Codex

Chantilly Codex

The Chantilly Codex is a manuscript of medieval music containing pieces from the style known as the Ars subtilior. It is held in the museum at the Château de Chantilly in Chantilly, Oise....

of French Ars subtilior

Ars subtilior

Ars subtilior is a musical style characterized by rhythmic and notational complexity, centered around Paris, Avignon in southern France, also in northern Spain at the end of the fourteenth century. The style also is found in the French Cypriot repertory...

music.

The father of modern music printing was a man named Ottaviano Petrucci

Ottaviano Petrucci

Ottaviano Petrucci was an Italian printer. His Harmonice Musices Odhecaton, a collection of chansons printed in 1501, is commonly misidentified as the first book of sheet music printed from movable type. Actually that distinction belongs to the Roman printer Ulrich Han's Missale Romanum of 1476...

, a printer and publisher who flourished in large measure thanks to a twenty-year monopoly of printed music in Venice

Venice

Venice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...

during the 16th century. His first collection was entitled Harmonice musices odhecaton A, and contained 96 polyphonic

Polyphony

In music, polyphony is a texture consisting of two or more independent melodic voices, as opposed to music with just one voice or music with one dominant melodic voice accompanied by chords ....

compositions, mostly by Josquin des Prez

Josquin Des Prez

Josquin des Prez [Josquin Lebloitte dit Desprez] , often referred to simply as Josquin, was a Franco-Flemish composer of the Renaissance...

and Heinrich Isaac

Heinrich Isaac

Heinrich Isaac was a Franco-Flemish Renaissance composer of south Netherlandish origin. He wrote masses, motets, songs , and instrumental music. A significant contemporary of Josquin des Prez, Isaac influenced the development of music in Germany...

. Petrucci flourished by publishing mainly Dutch language

Dutch language

Dutch is a West Germanic language and the native language of the majority of the population of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, the three member states of the Dutch Language Union. Most speakers live in the European Union, where it is a first language for about 23 million and a second...

works, rather than Italian, as Flemish works were very popular throughout Europe in the Renaissance. Petrucci used a triple-impression method of printing music, in which a sheet of paper was pressed three times. The first impression was the staff lines, the second the words, and the third the notes. This method produced very clean results, though it was time-consuming and expensive.

Around 1520 in England, John Rastell

John Rastell

John Rastell was an English printer and author.-Life:Born in London, he is vaguely reported by Anthony à Wood to have been "educated for a time in grammaticals and philosophicals" at Oxford. He became a member of Lincoln's Inn, and practised successfully as a barrister. He was also M.P...

developed a single-impression method for printing music. Elizabeth I

Elizabeth I of England

Elizabeth I was queen regnant of England and Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death. Sometimes called The Virgin Queen, Gloriana, or Good Queen Bess, Elizabeth was the fifth and last monarch of the Tudor dynasty...

granted the monopoly of music publishing to Tallis and his pupil William Byrd

William Byrd

William Byrd was an English composer of the Renaissance. He wrote in many of the forms current in England at the time, including various types of sacred and secular polyphony, keyboard and consort music.-Provenance:Knowledge of Byrd's biography expanded in the late 20th century, thanks largely...

which ensured that their works were widely distributed and have survived in various editions, but arguably limited the potential for music publishing in Britain. This method was adopted and used widely by a Frenchman, Pierre Attaingnant

Pierre Attaingnant

Pierre Attaingnant was a French music printer, active in Paris.-Life:Attaingnant is considered to be first large-scale publisher of single-impression movable type for music-printing, thus making it possible to print faster and cheaper than predecessors such as Ottaviano Petrucci...

. With his method, the staff lines, words, and notes were all part of a single piece of type, making it much easier to produce. However, this method produced messier results, as the staff lines often did not line up exactly and looked wavy on the page. The single-impression method eventually triumphed over Petrucci's, however, and became the dominant mode of printing until copper-plate engraving took over in the 17th century.

Copyright

Copyright law developed from the earliest monopoly held by Petrucci in Venice, and later a similar monopoly granted by Queen Elizabeth I to William Byrd

William Byrd

and Thomas Tallis

Thomas Tallis

Thomas Tallis was an English composer. Tallis flourished as a church musician in 16th century Tudor England. He occupies a primary place in anthologies of English church music, and is considered among the best of England's early composers. He is honoured for his original voice in English...

. Later, King Henry VIII

Henry VIII of England

Henry VIII was King of England from 21 April 1509 until his death. He was Lord, and later King, of Ireland, as well as continuing the nominal claim by the English monarchs to the Kingdom of France...

of England passed a law which required copies of all printed matter to be sent to the king and offered protection to printers in the form of licenses. This benefited the king with a new source of revenue. Elizabeth I

Elizabeth I of England

granted the monopoly of music publishing to Tallis and his pupil William Byrd

William Byrd

which ensured that their works were widely distributed and have survived in various editions, but arguably limited the potential for music publishing in Britain.

The earliest attempt at printed musical 'copyright' appears in the 'Shir Hashirim' of Salomone Rossi (Venice

Venice

Venice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...

, 1623) which includes a rabbinical curse on those pirating the text, written by Leon of Modena

Leon of Modena

Leon Modena or Yehudah Aryeh Mi-modena was a Jewish scholar born in Venice of a notable French family that had migrated to Italy after an expulsion of Jews from France.-Life:...

.

The licensing act of 1662 in England required the printer of every book to print on it a certificate of the licensor, stating that it contained no writing "contrary to the Christian faith, or the doctrine or discipline of the church of England against the state and government of the realm, or contrary to good life or good manners, or otherwise".

It was in 1709 that the Statute of Anne

Statute of Anne

The Statute of Anne was the first copyright law in the Kingdom of Great Britain , enacted in 1709 and entering into force on 10 April 1710...

was promulgated, which gave protection of a work initially for a period of 21 years, later extended to 28 years.

In the United States, protecting music initially was not a priority. In 1789 when the first congress of the US passed the first federal copyright law

The Copyright Act of 1790 was the first federal copyright act to be instituted in the United States, though most of the states had passed various legislation securing copyrights in the years immediately following the Revolutionary War...

, music was not included. The Copyright Act of 1831

The Copyright Act of 1831 was the first general revision to United States copyright law. The bill is largely the result of lobbying efforts by American lexicographer Noah Webster.The key changes in the Act included:...

expanded the law to include musical compositions, although only the reproduction right for printed music was protected. The copyright term for protection was 28 years plus a 14-year renewal period.

France followed with establishing their own copyright law. Soon began a movement for some international accord, which eventually came about at the meeting of Bern in 1886.

The 14 original member states of the Bern union adopted what is referred to as the Bern Convention

Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works

The Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works, usually known as the Berne Convention, is an international agreement governing copyright, which was first accepted in Berne, Switzerland in 1886.- Content :...

.

The core of the Convention is its provision that each of the contracting countries shall provide automatic protection for works in other countries of the union and for unpublished works whose authors are citizens of or residents in such other countries.

Copyright law encompasses not merely the right to print, but the right to collect revenue from all rights including but not limited to performance rights and phonographic rights. As of April 2000, over 76 countries have approved membership in the Bern convention.

Performing rights

While England was the leader in the development of the legal protection of copyright, the honor of the development of the collection of performing rights goes to the French.

In 1777, Beaumarchais founded an organization, "Bureau de legislation Dramatique" which later in 1829 became the Societé des Auteurs et Compositeurs Dramatiques (SACD) pursuant to which theatres agreed to pay playwrights a portion of their takings by the Society.

In 1847, the author Ernest Bourget had the idea of claiming the performing right in the Café Concerts and other establishments which used songs and or musical works. A lawsuit

Lawsuit

A lawsuit or "suit in law" is a civil action brought in a court of law in which a plaintiff, a party who claims to have incurred loss as a result of a defendant's actions, demands a legal or equitable remedy. The defendant is required to respond to the plaintiff's complaint...

won by Bourget and others led in 1851 to the formation of the Société des auteurs, compositeurs et éditeurs de musique

Société des auteurs, compositeurs et éditeurs de musique

Société des auteurs, compositeurs et éditeurs de musique is a French professional association collecting payments of artists’ rights and distributing the rights to the original songwriters, composers and music publishers.-History:...

(SACEM) – the first performing rights society in the world.

Other countries followed suit. In 1882 the Italian Society SIAE was founded. In 1903 the predecessor society to the current German society GEMA was formed by Richard Strauss

Richard Strauss

Richard Georg Strauss was a leading German composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras. He is known for his operas, which include Der Rosenkavalier and Salome; his Lieder, especially his Four Last Songs; and his tone poems and orchestral works, such as Death and Transfiguration, Till...

in 1903, which became GEMA IN 1915 when it merged with another small society.

Thus by the end of the 19th century virtually all the steps were in place to safeguard the rights of a composer and therefore to render the activity of music publishing a viable business.

Music publishing

Through the 19th century increasing urbanization, the possibility of mass circulation of cheap printed materials, and the rapid growth of music hall and vaudeville led to the development of modern music publishing.

Technology would add the final ingredient – lithography, which was invented in Germany in 1798. Music could now be mass-produced more cheaply than by the conventional method of engraved plates.
The scene was set for the commercial explosion of popular music.

Germany, following the great outpouring of German music in the 18th and 19th centuries, was the birthplace of modern music publishing.

German publishing

In the 18th Century, the great German music publishing enterprises came into being. Breitkopf of Leipzig was the first significant name. He was a printer and general publisher and became a music printer in 1754. His business success was largely founded on improvements in the setting of music type. Hartel joined the firm in 1795 and then began the publication of the great series of the complete works of various composers for which the house is still famous, including Beethoven, Haydn, Mozart, Schubert, 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....

and Wagner. Breitkopf and Hartel were original publishers of Haydn, Beethoven, Schubert, Chopin, Schumann, Liszt and Wagner, complete editions of Bach, Schutz, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert and Schumann, also Furtwangler and Hindemith.

Schott Music

Schott Music

Schott Music is one of the oldest German music publishers. It is also one of the largest music publishing houses in Europe and is currently the second oldest music publishing house. The company headquarters of Schott Music was founded by Bernhard Schott in Mainz, Germany in 1770.Established in...

of Mainz was founded in 1770 and still exists today. They published French and Italian operas (Donizetti, Rossini), and later such authors as Hindemith, Stravinsky, Orff

Orff

Orff can refer to:*Carl Orff, a German composer, known for his teaching method, the Orff Schulwerk.**Orff Schulwerk encompasses the Orff instruments and teaching methods for children....

, Schoenberg

Schoenberg

Schoenberg is the surname of several persons:* Arnold Schoenberg , Austrian-American composer* Claude-Michel Schoenberg , French record producer, actor, singer, popular songwriter, and musical theatre composer...

, Henze & Wagner.

Simrock of Bonn and later Berlin was established in 1790. Their original authors were Beethoven, Haydn, Meyerbeer, Weber, Mendelssohn, Schumann and Brahms. Firms were soon founded including Artaria

Artaria

Artaria and company was one of the most important music publishing firms of the late 18th and 19th century. Founded in the 18th century in Vienna, the company is associated with many leading names of the classical era.- History :...

of Vienna 1765-1932, the original publisher of Mozart.

In 1810 Adolf Martin Schlesinger

Adolf Martin Schlesinger

Adolf Martin Schlesinger was a German music publisher whose firm became one of the most influential in Berlin in the early nineteenth century.-Career:...

founded his publishing house in Berlin, and became publisher to (amongst others) Beethoven, 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....

and Felix Mendelssohn

Felix Mendelssohn

Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn Barthóldy , use the form 'Mendelssohn' and not 'Mendelssohn Bartholdy'. The Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians gives ' Felix Mendelssohn' as the entry, with 'Mendelssohn' used in the body text...

. His son Maurice founded a branch of the firm in Paris, publishing amongst others the works of Liszt

Liszt

Liszt is a Hungarian surname. Notable persons with that surname include:* Franz Liszt , Hungarian composer and pianist* Adam Liszt , father of Franz Liszt* Anna Liszt , mother of Franz Liszt...

, Berlioz, Fromental Halévy

Fromental Halévy

Jacques-François-Fromental-Élie Halévy, usually known as Fromental Halévy , was a French composer. He is known today largely for his opera La Juive.-Early career:...

and Giacomo Meyerbeer

Giacomo Meyerbeer

Giacomo Meyerbeer was a noted German opera composer, and the first great exponent of "grand opera." At his peak in the 1830s and 1840s, he was the most famous and successful composer of opera in Europe, yet he is rarely performed today.-Early years:He was born to a Jewish family in Tasdorf , near...

.

Musikverlag Josef Weinberger of Frankfurt was founded in 1885 in Vienna. They published operettas by Kalman, Lehar, Offenbach, Stolz, Strauss and others.
One can see from the large number of music publishing houses which were founded in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, Germany advanced quickly to the top of the music publishing world.

United States

In 1764, Josiah Flagg compiled the first collection of popular and religious music, printed on paper made in the colonies. The post-revolutionary period was notable for advancing the music industry when the first professional music publishers migrated from Europe in the 1770’s, opening shops in Philadelphia, New York, Boston

Boston

Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...

and Baltimore

Baltimore

Baltimore is the largest independent city in the United States and the largest city and cultural center of the US state of Maryland. The city is located in central Maryland along the tidal portion of the Patapsco River, an arm of the Chesapeake Bay. Baltimore is sometimes referred to as Baltimore...

, bringing with them European technology. Benjamin Carr

Benjamin Carr

Benjamin Carr was an American composer, singer, teacher, and music publisher. Born in London, he studied organ with Charles Wesley and composition with Samuel Arnold. In 1793 he traveled to Philadelphia with a stage company, and a year later went with the same company to New York, where he...

and James Hewitt

James Hewitt (musician)

James Hewitt was an American conductor, composer and music publisher. Born in Dartmoor, England, he was known to have lived in London in 1791 and early 1792, but went to New York in September of that year. He stayed in New York until 1811, conducting a theater orchestra and composing and...

were two important early American music publishers.

In the first quarter of the 19th century alone, 10,000 pieces of popular music were printed by US publishers. The industry did not promote music or develop writers. Songs became popular with virtually no promotion. Generally most minstrel troupes and singing personalities wrote their own music or had songs written to order. This was all changed by the young men entering the business from other fields, many from humble origins with no experience in publishing, but with energy and innovative ideas, all of which they were to focus on publishing the American popular song.

Prior to the 1880s, popular music publishing was a subsidiary function of music stores or “serious music” publishers. After 1880, song promotion developed, or what early Tin Pan Alley

Tin Pan Alley

Tin Pan Alley is the name given to the collection of New York City music publishers and songwriters who dominated the popular music of the United States in the late 19th century and early 20th century...

publishers would soon call “plugging”. By 1900, music publishers were making the move from their home on 14th St. to 28th St. (between 6th Ave and Broadway) “Tin Pan Alley” in order to be closer to the thriving entertainment center of the day. The amount of music produced by Tin Pan Alley were voluminous. The first decade of the 20th century boasted the highest production of popular music in history, some 25,000 songs annually. In 1893, the song “After the Ball” sold one million copies in America and, in the next ten years, went on to sell a total of ten million.

Despite the enactment of new U.S. copyright legislation, including the 1891 Chace Act which allowed for the international protection of copyrights, the provisions of the 1909 copyright act had been generally ignored. In 1914, ASCAP was formally organized to license the performances of songs.

Modern technology

The invention of the gramophone

Phonograph

The phonograph record player, or gramophone is a device introduced in 1877 that has had continued common use for reproducing sound recordings, although when first developed, the phonograph was used to both record and reproduce sounds...

heralded a new form of music publishing, marketing the recorded performance of music.

Initially, popular music was slow to take advantage of the new recordings and in 1910, more than 75% of the records sold were classical music. During the first quarter of the 20th century, sheet music was still king and publishers and composers depended primarily on the sale of sheet music for their revenues.

However, sheet sales declined while records were still providing inadequate income to compensate for this loss. This led to short lived but serious economic problems for some publishers.

Samuel Fox (1884-1971)

Samuel Fox (1884-1971)

Samuel Fox , American music publisher and founder of the Sam Fox Publishing Company and the first to publish original film scores in the United States.-Early life:...

who founded the Sam Fox Publishing Company

Sam Fox Publishing Company

Sam Fox Publishing Company, American music publishing house founded in 1906 by Sam Fox of Cleveland, Ohio. The company was the first to publish original film scores in the United States, and was the publisher of numerous artists and international hit songs....

in 1906, was the first to publish original film scores.

In 1927, after the advent of The Jazz Singer (the first talkie) motion picture, the need for music led movie studios to buy music publishing companies, gaining both catalogues of music and experienced composers at the same time. For example, in 1929, Warners paid 10 million dollars for Harms, Witmark and Remick; MGM bought Leo Feist, Robbins and some smaller companies; Paramount started Famous Music.

The post WW2 period resulted in such innovations as the jukebox and microgroove recording, which brought the LP record.

The 1980’s also saw the emergence of more new technology (satellite transmissions - CDs) and new outlets (cable). Through the 90’s, these new formats (especially CDs) generated strong growth for the music publishing industry.

With the Internet era (starting in 1994) sheet music publishers are taking place on the Internet proposing digital sheet music for instant download to a wider audience by making sheet music available easily and cheaply.

New online businesses like Songtrust

Songtrust

Songtrust, a division of Downtown Music LLC, is a digital rights management solution empowering songwriters and artists to manage their music publishing and related rights...

are trying to streamline what has historically been a complex process of registering and protecting song copyrights, collecting royalties, and maximizing licensing opportunities..

Early publishing

Copyright

Performing rights

Music publishing

German publishing

United States

Modern technology

See also