Ernst Eulenburg the music publisher was established by Ernst Eulenburg 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 ...
in 1874. The firm started by publishing a series of studies by a
Dresden
Dresden (, ; Upper Saxon: ''Dräsdn''; wen, label= Upper Sorbian, Drježdźany) is the capital city of the German state of Saxony and its second most populous city, after Leipzig. It is the 12th most populous city of Germany, the fourth ...
piano teacher, and then expanded into light music and works for men's chorus, at first all non-copyright works.
Origins of the miniature scores
In 1891, Eulenburg acquired the company of Payne who had recently started to publish miniature scores of chamber works, thus effectively establishing the basis for the famous miniature scores which are what Eulenburg is famous for today. The catalogue was further expanded in 1908 by the acquisition of the catalogue of Donajowski, who published miniature scores of orchestral works in England.
Later history of the company
In 1905, Ernst's son Kurt began to work in the firm, a connection maintained until his retirement at age 90 in 1968. After Ernst died in 1926, Kurt took over and began to introduce important revisions of scores by leading musicologists such as
Alfred Einstein (who edited, for example,
Don Giovanni) and
Friedrich Blume
Friedrich Blume (5 January 1893, in Schlüchtern, Hesse-Nassau – 22 November 1975, in Schlüchtern) was professor of musicology at the University of Kiel from 1938 to 1958. He was a student in Munich, Berlin and Leipzig, and taught in the las ...
(who edited the
Mozart piano concertos
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's concertos for piano and orchestra are numbered from 1 to 27. The first four numbered concertos and three unnumbered concertos are early works that are arrangements of keyboard sonatas by various contemporary composers. ...
). At the same time, Eulenburg began to publish the work of contemporary composers such as
Paul Graener
Paul Graener (11 January 1872 – 13 November 1944) was a German composer and conductor. He composed numerous operas and orchestral works in the Romanticism style.
Biography
Graener was born in Berlin and orphaned as a young child. A boy ...
and the "classical" compositions of the film composer
Miklós Rózsa
Miklós Rózsa (; April 18, 1907 – July 27, 1995) was a Hungarian-American composer trained in Germany (1925–1931) and active in France (1931–1935), the United Kingdom (1935–1940), and the United States (1940–1995), with extensi ...
.
The war years
Kurt Eulenburg and his family were expelled from Germany in 1939 just before the outbreak of the second world war, and settled in
Zurich. The firm Ernst Eulenburg Ltd, London was set up after negotiations with Eulenburg's London agents, Goodwin & Tabb; while the Leipzig concern was expropriated and continued under the name of Horst Sander KG.
Eulenburg after the war
After the war ended in 1945, Eulenburg moved to London to take over control of the firm there, and began slowly to expand the catalogue again. Towards the end of the 1950s, Eulenburg were acquired by
Schott & Co. who produce the Edition Eulenburg today.
Walter Bergmann acted as editor-in-chief until 1967, when
Roger Fiske took on the job until 1975. Today, over 1200 titles are produced under the name of Edition Eulenburg, scores that are instantly recognisable by their small size and bright yellow covers.
References
*
Schönzeler, H-H. 1979. Kurt Eulenburg at 100. Recollections of a Century in Music Publishing. ''Musical Times'', 120, 127-128.
External links
www.schott-music.com
Eulenburg
Eulenburg
Publishing companies established in 1874
Mass media in Leipzig
1874 establishments in Germany
{{publish-stub