Bernhard Christoph Breitkopf (2 March 1695 in Clausthal, now

Clausthal-Zellerfeld Clausthal-Zellerfeld is a town in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is located in the southwestern part of the Harz mountains. Its population is approximately 15,000. The City is the location of the Clausthal University of Technology. The health resort ...

– 26 March 1777 in

Leipzig Leipzig ( , ; Upper Saxon: ) is the most populous city in the German state of Saxony. Leipzig's population of 605,407 inhabitants (1.1 million in the larger urban zone) as of 2021 places the city as Germany's eighth most populous, as wel ...

) was a German printer and publisher, and founder of the publisher that became

Breitkopf & Härtel Breitkopf & Härtel is the world's oldest music publishing house. The firm was founded in 1719 in Leipzig by Bernhard Christoph Breitkopf. The catalogue currently contains over 1,000 composers, 8,000 works and 15,000 music editions or books on ...

. In 1714 he moved to Leipzig and worked for one year in a print shop. After working for several months in

Jena Jena () is a German city and the second largest city in Thuringia. Together with the nearby cities of Erfurt and Weimar, it forms the central metropolitan area of Thuringia with approximately 500,000 inhabitants, while the city itself has a popu ...

, and three years in

Halle, Saxony-Anhalt Halle (Saale), or simply Halle (; from the 15th to the 17th century: ''Hall in Sachsen''; until the beginning of the 20th century: ''Halle an der Saale'' ; from 1965 to 1995: ''Halle/Saale'') is the largest city of the German state of Saxony-Anh ...

, he returned to Leipzig in 1718, married Sophia Maria Müller and inherited an existing print shop, established in 1664, which he rescued from the brink of economic ruin. He began publishing with the 1723 printing of a manual of the

Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
''Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary''. Hebrew: ''Tān ...

. After the death of his wife, Breitkopf remarried in 1739 to Sophia Theodore Kayser. He passed on the printing business to his son

Johann Gottlob Immanuel Breitkopf Johann Gottlob Immanuel Breitkopf (Leipzig, 23 November 1719 – 28 January 1794, Leipzig) was a German music publisher and typographer. Biography Breitkopf was the son of the publisher Bernhard Christoph Breitkopf, founder of the publishing hous ...

in 1745. He maintained the publishing side of the business until his death, however his son became a partner in 1762.

References

* 1695 births 1777 deaths German music publishers (people) {{publish-bio-stub