Johann Gottlob Immanuel Breitkopf (

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 ...

, 23 November 1719 – 28 January 1794, Leipzig) was a German

music publisher A music publisher is a type of publisher that specializes in distributing music. Music publishers originally published sheet music. When copyright became legally protected, music publishers started to play a role in the management of the intellect ...

and

typographer Typography is the art and technique of arranging type to make written language legible, readable and appealing when displayed. The arrangement of type involves selecting typefaces, point sizes, line lengths, line-spacing ( leading), an ...

Biography

Breitkopf was the son of the publisher

Bernhard Christoph Breitkopf Bernhard Christoph Breitkopf (2 March 1695 in Clausthal, now Clausthal-Zellerfeld – 26 March 1777 in Leipzig) was a German printer and publisher, and founder of the publisher that became Breitkopf & Härtel. In 1714 he moved to Leipzig and wor ...

, founder of the publishing house

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 ...

. He was born in

and attended the

University of Leipzig Leipzig University (german: Universität Leipzig), in Leipzig in Saxony, Germany, is one of the world's oldest universities and the second-oldest university (by consecutive years of existence) in Germany. The university was founded on 2 Decemb ...

. His investigations in history and mathematics led him to a scientific study of printing, which resulted in a more artistic development of German text, and an improvement of musical notation (1754). He revolutionized the music score printing with

movable type Movable type (US English; moveable type in British English) is the system and technology of printing and typography that uses movable components to reproduce the elements of a document (usually individual alphanumeric characters or punctuatio ...

s, and fonts designed as Breitkopf Fraktur.

References

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External links

* German typographers and type designers 1719 births 1794 deaths Businesspeople from Leipzig Leipzig University alumni German publishers (people) {{Germany-business-bio-stub