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Puttick's Auctions: Windows on the Retail Music Trade
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 January 2020
Extract
At the auction sale of Sterndale Bennett's library in 1875, Thomas Taphouse paid £52 for the autograph manuscript of Fingal's Cave Overture. Two months earlier, at another auction, the publisher John Williams paid £990 for the plates and copyrights of Charles Coote's Prince Imperial Galop, a music-hall favourite (done – it was reported – to the applause of those in attendance). This essay will not attempt to account for such seemingly irreconcilable events and values – the market-place was always alive with such contrasts – but will, instead, focus attention on the auctioneer at both of those sales, the London firm of Puttick & Simpson, sketching its history from 1846 to 1971, describing its music sales, and demonstrating the singular importance, today, of its surviving catalogues. It will, it is hoped, persuade others to consider different and more painstaking studies of those relics than have been undertaken to this point.
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- Copyright © 1989 Royal Musical Association
References
1 See especially Frank Kidson, British Music Publishers, Printers and Engravers (London 1900), Oliver W. Neighbour and Alan Tyson, English Music Publishers' Plate Numbers in the First Half of the Nineteenth Century (London, 1965); and, of course, Charles Humphries and William C. Smith, Music Publishing in the British Isles, from the Earliest Times to the Middle of the Nineteenth Century (2nd edn, New York, 1970). Donald W Krummel's recent article, ‘Clarifying the Musical Page’, Printing History, 8 (1986), 26–36, includes a good overview of pertinent literature, his and H. Edmund Poole's contribution to The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (London, 1980) contains a more extensive bibliography.Google Scholar
2 Almost all of the so-called histories of music publishing firms devote considerable space to discussing their relationship to some of their authors. See Abbott, John, The Story of Francis, Day & Hunter (London, 1952), William Boosey, Fifty Years of Music (London, 1931); Michael Hurd, Vincent Novello and Company (London, 1981); and Novello(firm, publishers), A Century and a Half in Soho A Short History of the Firm (London, 1961)Google Scholar
3 The New Grove Dictionary contains the most recent overview of music copyright laws in the article ‘Copyright’ (see especially the section ‘Great Britain’, iv, 736–44, by Peter Kleiner). Standard references for many years have been Edward Cutler, A Manual of Music Copyright Law (London, 1905) and Sidney Charles Isaacs, The Law Relating to Theatres, Music-Halls … including the Law of Musical and Dramatic Copyright (London, 1927). Dealing with the growth of copyright protection for musical compositions in Britain from 1881 to 1906 is my own Music Publishing, Copyright and Piracy in Victorian England (London, 1985). Alan Peacock and Ronald Weir discuss composers' rights from that time to 1975 in their The Composer in the Market-Place (London, 1975) We await eagerly a definitive study of the history of the Performing Right Society by Cyril Ehrlich, to be published in 1989Google Scholar
4 More factual than the histories of music publishers in note 2 and offering greater insight into publishing practices are H Edmund Poole, ‘A Day at a Music Publishers D'Almaine’, Journal of the Printing History Society, 14 (1979/80), 59–81; H. Edmund Poole and Donald W Krummel, ‘Printing and Publishing of Music’, The New Grove Dictionary, xv, 232–74; Krummel, ‘Music Publishing’, Music in Britain The Romantic Age, ed Nicholas Temperley (London 1981), 46–59, Maurice J Brown, ‘Chopin and His English Publisher [Wessel]’, Music and Letters, 39 (1958), 363–71, Hand Lenneberg, ‘Music Publishing and Dissemination in the Early Nineteenth Century Some Vignettes’, Journal of Musicology, 2 (1983), 174–83; Kallberg, Jeffrey, ‘Chopin in the Marketplace. Aspects of the International Music Publishing Industry in the First Half of the Nineteenth Century, Part I’, Notes, 39 (1982–3), 535–69; and Victoria Cooper-Deathridge, ‘The Novello Stockbook of 1858–1869: A Chronicle of Publishing Activity’, Notes, 44 (1987–8), 240–51. Cooper-Deathridge observes that ‘neglected has been an acknowledgment of music publishing at its first fundamental level – as a business‘Google Scholar
5 Philip Gossett echoes this statement – but for Italy – in his ‘Prefazione’ to Agostino Zecca Laterza, Il catalogo numenco Ricordi 1857 (Rome, 1984), where he says (p. vii) 'Few are the Renaissance music publishers whose output has not been analysed and charted Yet for Lucca, Girard, Ratti. Guidi, Lorenzi, all important publishers during the nineteenth century .. we are poorly servedGoogle Scholar
6 Krummel, Donald W, Bibliographical Handbook of American Music (Urbana, 1987), 221 (though he is speaking of American publishers).Google Scholar
7 A considerable part of the archives of Novello and Company have recently been placed on permanent loan in the British Library, the generous gift reported by Michael Hurd in ‘The Novello Archives’, The Musical Times, 127 (1986), 687–8.Google Scholar
8 This is quoted from a review in The Journal of Musicological Research, 7 (1987), 294–301, by Hans Lenneberg, one of a handful of scholars who have been writing about the music trade His thoughts echo those of Lenore Coral who, in an earlier essay on ‘Music Dealers and Antiquarians’ in The New Grove Dictionary, xii, 828–30, also voiced dismay that the study of the retail distribution of music ‘has been virtually untouched by the music historian’.Google Scholar
9 We are not even certain of the questions, because we have a limited view of what we do not know about the trade and assume, with some abandon, I think, that it was then as it is now But was it? And does it matter if it was not? And will we know if it matters until we find out about it?Google Scholar
10 That is impressive It comes close to the 1,862 Antiquarian Catalogues of Musical Interest issued during the Puttick & Simpson years by 166 (!) different British dealers. (They are listed in my book of that title (London, 1988). The list incorporates inventories of antiquarian catalogues in 15 major public and private collections, including the Library of Congress, the British Library, the Grolier Club and the Vereeniging ter Bervordering van de Belangen des Boekhandels in Amsterdam)Google Scholar
11 At the Wessel sale in July of 1860 Ashdown, for £177 11s, bought one lot containing the complete authorized English copyrighted collection of Chopin's pianoforte works published by Wessel beginning in 1833 It comprised 991 plates and copyrights to 71 separate titlesGoogle Scholar
12 The sale of copyrights and selling of ‘shares’ of books at public auction was an ancient practice discussed in a number of books, including Joseph Shaylor, Fascination of Boohs (New York, 1912) and Terry Belanger, ‘Booksellers’ Sales of Copyrights: Aspects of the London Book Trade, 1718–1768' (Ph D dissertation, Columbia University, 1970).Google Scholar
13 My ‘Dispersal of Engraved Plates and Copyrights in British Auctions, 1803–1931’, Richard S. Hill Tributes from Friends, ed. Carol June Bradley and James Coover (Detroit, 1987), 233–315 describes these 34 sales A Mr White led the way with ten sales between 1831 and 1837, including the important sales of Clementi & Co ‘s plates in 1835 and printed stock in 1836.Google Scholar
14 Exemplifying the book trade's earlier disregard for these events was their omission from the original 1915 List of Catalogues of English Book Sales, 1676–1900, now in the British Museum, compiled by Alfred W. Pollard. Nor do they appear in the interleaved copies of the List into which scholars and libraries have, for years – since A N. L Munby's time – added citations for other catalogues Munby's first update nearly doubled Pollard's original total, though he noted in his copy that recorded were none of the ‘auction set’ of Puttick's catalogues at the British Museum, only about 250 of some 4,000 of Hodgson's file set there, and only those catalogues from Christie's included by Frits Lugt in his monumental Répertoire des catalogues de ventes publiques .. (The Hague, 1938). Pollard carefully added the qualifier ‘book’ to ‘sales’ in the title of his list, and passed by the trade sales Munby later called their omission a mistake in his ‘Libraries of English Men of Letters’ (1964; repr in his Essays and Papers, ed. Nicolas Barker (London, 1978), 101–20). Among the sales categorized by Pollard as ‘anonymous sales of no importance’ were, of course, those of plates and copyrights, printed stock – and all sales of musical instruments.Google Scholar
15 Puttick's plates and stock sales have far too often been carelessly equated with Hodgson's ‘remainder’ sales. They were, in fact, markedly different. See my Music at Auction: Putltck & Simpson (of London), 1794–1971 (Detroit, 1988).Google Scholar
16 It was to move in 1936 to premises in New Bond Street, with more space but less pedigree. Subsequently Reynolds's house was demolished and replaced by a building housing the Automobile Association.Google Scholar
17 The British music-hall – including the famed Alhambra and the Empire – and Puttick & Simpson reached the zenith of their prosperity and popularity at the same time, and declined apace.Google Scholar
18 Which John Hollingshead called a ‘Museum of Pretension’ in his The Story of Leicester Square (London, 1892).Google Scholar
19 They are fully described in my Music at Auction.Google Scholar
20 The quality of materials in the sales had been steadily lessening, particularly those in the sales of private collections. In sales of musical instruments, however, Puttick's still bested all its competition - and did so almost to the last. Sotheby's, for example, offered no instruments in its sales until after World War II, sold no Stradivari until 1900 – no others until 1957. Its first sale devoted to musical instruments did not come along until 1969.Google Scholar
21 It is complete except for some missing numbers from Puttick s busiest years, 1888–90 Copies of these are to be found elsewhere – for example, at Cambridge University – but they are, unfortunately, unmarkedGoogle Scholar
22 Walters, Gwyn, ‘Early Sale Catalogues’ Problems and Perspectives', Sale and Distribution of Books from 1700. ed Robin Myers and Michael Harris (Oxford, 1982), 109.Google Scholar
23 A survey done in connection with my book Music at Auction turned up only a few pockets of Puttick's sale catalogues worth noting The Grolier Club in New York City has a good sampling of the more important general book sales, the Music Division of the New York Public Library at Lincoln Center a number of the more important private music library sales up to about 1890, a bundle of catalogues of plate and copyright sales at the University of Chicago includes several dozen by Puttick's The only noteworthy complete run of the catalogues, for any period of time, is the set which was originally Sir Thomas Phillipps's, covering 1846 to 1872, now the property of Mr Harrison Horblit These are almost the same years as those covered in the Harvester Press's announced – and welcome – issue in microform of Literature, Music and Art The Annotated Sales Catalogues of Puttick and Simpson, 1846–1870, from the British LibraryGoogle Scholar
24 A. Hyatt King noted many of the firm's sales of important private libraries up to 1888 in his fascinating Some British Collectors of Music (Cambridge, 1963) The trade sales, and their role in the history of the retail trade, lay outside the scope of that work It has been the same with other historians of music and those of the book trade, too (For more about this lack of attention see above, n. 14.)Google Scholar
25 The composite sales which offered such a mixture of consignments must have attracted an exhilarating mixture of buyers Among those at any one sale might have been publishers like Ashdown, Augener and Lonsdale, instrument sellers such as Hart, Hill and Withers, antiquarians like Whittingham, Reeves, Quaritch and Maggs, private collectors like Oliphant, Ayrton, Marshall and Cummings; along with many small and provincial music sellers, an occasional passer-by, as well as the mysterious person who attended almost every Puttick's sale, who won the bidding for many items, and whose name went in the auctioneer's sheets as ‘Money’ Apparently it was Puttick's code for cash from a person whose name was unimportant or who wished to remain anonymousGoogle Scholar
26 The ‘guaranteed’ sales begun in 1893 were new and unusual, and the trade's response to them very favourable. Unlike instruments in other sales, the ascriptions they bore to various makers were certified by Puttick's to be true, and if the accepted authorities, such as Hill or Hart, determined on examination otherwise, the buyer was returned his money as well as the cost of the appraisal.Google Scholar
27 The Earl's other Gutenberg, on paper, was sold privately to Quaritch in 1896 and eventually found its way to Harvard University The vellum copy also ended up with Quaritch, but he bought it at auction on 28 June 1897 for £4,000 From him it went to the Hoe collection, and eventually to the Huntington Library.Google Scholar
28 As commented upon by Cyril Ehrlich in his book, The Piano A History (London, 1976) and several paragraphs under ‘Pianoforte’ in The New Grove Dictionary, xiv, 704. William Pole, in his Musical Instruments at the Great Exhibition of 1851 (London, 1851), states the 1851 London directories list nearly 200 piano manufacturers producing about 450 instruments a week or 23,000 a year. Ehrlich adds: by 1870, 25,000, by 1890, 50,000, and by 1910, the peak of it, 75,000 yearly For a history of the improvement of musical instruction, see Ehrlich's The Music Profession in Britain since the Eighteenth Century A Social History (Oxford, 1985)Google Scholar
29 Music Publishing', 49. Krummel's lucid article is basic reading for anyone studying the retail trade in Britain. The Figure he cites is one of a number assembled by A. Hyatt KingGoogle Scholar
30 Musical Opinion and Music Trade Review, 21 (August 1898), 771–2.Google Scholar
31 Of the reasons for the incompleteness of the Stationers' Hall registers, not the least was the publishers' aversion to delivering deposit copies to five UK libraries and paying the registration fee. Some were naughty. The phrase ‘Ent. Sta. Hall’ printed on a cover did not always mean that a piece had, in fact, been registered there. This ‘oversight’ came out several times during court proceedings against the music pirates in the Victorian era. See my Music Publishing, Copyright, and Piracy in Victorian England (London, 1985)Google Scholar
32 Pearsall, Ronald, Victorian Popular Music (Newton Abbot, 1973), 13 and 231, a facsimile of a catalogue page.Google Scholar
33 Haill, Catherine, Victorian Illustrated Music Sheets (London, 1981)Google Scholar
34 The Catalogue of Printed Music in the British Library to 1900 (London, 1981–7).Google Scholar
35 One of those few exceptions, the big sale of the Willis Music Company's plates and copyrights in 1906, did not signal the expiration of the firm, only its decision to concentrate on ‘cheaper publications’.Google Scholar
36 As Royal A. Gettman pointed out about some of the sales by the literary publisher Richard Bentley and Henry Colburn in his A Victorian Publisher A Study of the Bentley Papers (Cambridge, 1960), 151.Google Scholar
37 Robin Myers to author, 3 March 1983Google Scholar
38 In the sale of Shepherd & Kilner properties, 24 February 1885: ‘Stock can be taken @ 4s per 100 sheets’, in the same catalogue, after lot 26. ‘Stock included with the plates‘Google Scholar
39 So ably described in Jeffrey Kallberg's ‘Chopin in the Marketplace‘Google Scholar
40 Metzler's 240-page catalogue appeared in 1866; the sale at Puttick's took place on 7–12 May of that year. Wessel's 192-page catalogue was published probably in 1860, and its sale was on 23 July of 1860. Cramer's issued its 128-page list in 1871; Part I of its dispersal at Puttick's occurred on 27 March 1871, Part II on 18 March 1875. These published catalogues need, sometime, to be concorded with the contents of the Puttick's sale catalogues to determine, for example, if any of the firm's properties were dispersed in other ways – perhaps by private treaty.Google Scholar
41 Here, again, the numbers are staggering: the title-pages of 21 of the 35 sales of plates during Puttick's first 20 years specify the number of plates in each. They total 298,400. Since the 21 sales are only a little over 10% of the total plates sales (201), the firm probably handled close to three million plates Strong internal evidence in the catalogues suggests that most were transported to Puttick's before the sale, then carted off afterwards by their new owners.Google Scholar
42 Up to 1904, they conducted an average of three such sales a year, in 1905, 1906 and 1907, just two; one each year up to 1918, and finally three widely spaced sales in 1921, 1923 and 1931.Google Scholar
43 The advent of the ‘talkies’ has been offered in explanation of this complete cessation in 1931 The decline of sales before that date reflects a decline in the market for music, and that, in turn, reflects the growing popularity of other entertainments – first the gramophone, then radio – after the turn of the century.Google Scholar