Breitkopf Fraktur is a
Blackletter
Blackletter (sometimes black letter), also known as Gothic script, Gothic minuscule, or Textura, was a script used throughout Western Europe from approximately 1150 until the 17th century. It continued to be commonly used for the Danish, Norwe ...
font designed by
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), a ...
and 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 ...
Johann Gottlob Immanuel Breitkopf (1719–1794). Breitkopf was the son of the publisher
Bernhard Christoph Breitkopf, 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 ...
, a firm that continues to the present day.
Breitkopf supervised the creation of the typeface, produced in his office as early as 1750. The type design was performed by punchcutters Christian Zinck, Johann Michael Schmidt and Johann Peter Astropacus, based on an old fraktur typeface called ''Neudörffer-Andreä Fraktur'', discovered by Breitkopf when he was printing Dürer's ''Unterweysung''. In that sense, ''Breitkopf Fraktur'' marks a departure from the overly ornate Baroque shapes popular at the time, and a return to the austere calligraphic roots of Fraktur typefaces.
Digital versions of ''Breitkopf Fraktur'' are available through several digital type foundries.
See also
*
Fette Fraktur
*
Fraktur
Fraktur () is a calligraphic hand of the Latin alphabet and any of several blackletter typefaces derived from this hand. The blackletter lines are broken up; that is, their forms contain many angles when compared to the curves of the Antiq ...
References
German sources
*
* {{NDB, 2, 578, 579, Breitkopf, Johann Gottlob, Wolfgang Schmieder
Blackletter
Blackletter typefaces