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Piracy and Panacea in the Dissemination of Music in the Late Eighteenth Century

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 1975

Barry S. Brook
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Extract

This paper is concerned with two decades when musical piracy was rampant, the 1770s and 1780s; with two cities where it flourished: Paris, a performing and publishing capital, and Leipzig, a centre of music copying; and with two imaginative men who sought panaceas or, in their view, rational solutions to the problems of piracy in music. One of these was relatively famous, Johann Gottlob Breitkopf; the other, Christian Gottfried Thomas, virtually unknown.

Type
Research Article
Information
Proceedings of the Royal Musical Association , Volume 102 , 1975 , pp. 13 - 36
Copyright
Copyright © 1979 The Royal Musical Association and the Authors

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References

1 Barry S. Brook, ‘Sturm und Drang and the Romantic Period in Music’, Studies in Romanticism, ix (1970). 269–84; ‘The Symphonie Concertante its musical and sociological bases’, International Review of the Aesthetics and Sociology of Music, vi/1 (1975), 9–28Google Scholar

2 See the new introduction by Malcolm Bradbury and Bryan Wilson to the second edition of Robert Excarpit's Sociology of Literature (London, 1971), 16.Google Scholar

3 In the present context I prefer the term ‘dissemination’ to the sociologist's more commonly used ‘diffusion’, which seems to imply a homogeneous dispersal unknown in the eighteenth century, or the economist's classic ‘distribution’, which seems to imply that products alone are involved, and to ignore the possibility of sound transmission.Google Scholar

4 See Wladimir Savelievich and Emma Shadkhan Woytinsky, World Population and Production (New York, 1953); Michael George Mulhall, The Dictionary of Statistics (London, 1892), 446. The population of London around 1800 was 959,000; Paris (in 1789) 525,000; Vienna, in 1800, 247,000, Naples, 350,000, Rome, 153,000; Amsterdam, 201,000; Berlin, 172,000 Mannheim is not included in those cities having more than 75,000 inhabitants.Google Scholar

5 Burney writes: ‘The music shops of NUREMBERG are the most remarkable in Germany. It is in this city only, that musical compositions are engraved; in other parts of the empire, they are all printed with types [e.g. in Leipzig by Breitkopf)’; in the German edition of Burney's account of his musical tours, published in Hamburg (1772–3), J. J. C. Bode, his translator, protests, rather inaccurately: ‘Much engraving is also carried on in Brunswick, Hamburg, Leipzig, and many other places. The beautiful typeset music of Breitkopf is much more convenient, somewhat cheaper, and nearly always more readable than engraved music, so that the engravers, who cannot do much else, are in difficulties.’ (Percy A. Scholes, ed., An Eighteenth-Century Musical Tour in Central Europe and the Netherlands, Dr. Burney's Musical Tours in Europe, ii (London,’ 1959), 238; Scholes erroneously attributes this statement, from vol. iii, p. 262–3 of the German edition, to C. D. Ebeling, Burney's friend, who translated only the first volume of the Tagebuch) Both Burney and Bode were speaking relatively; in Germany, far more works were circulated in manuscript than were printed or engraved. See also Horst Heussner, ‘Nürnberger Musikverlag und Musιkalienhanded in 18. Jahrhundert’. Musιk und Verlag: Karl Vötterle zum 65. Geburtstag (Kassel, 1968), 319–41.Google Scholar

6 Scholes, Burney's Musical Tours, ii, 121 (n. 1), 124.Google Scholar

7 Scholes, An Eighteenth-Century Musical Tour in France and Italy, Dr. Burney's Musical Tours in Europe, i (London, 1959, 139.Google Scholar

8 The most voluminous issue of the Almanach, that of 1783, provides 145 pages of the most detailed lists of professional musicians, with hundreds and hundreds of composers, teachers, performers, publishers and instrument makers.Google Scholar

9 This emigration had a powerful effect on Germany's musical life After Handel had shown the way, London attracted Pepusch, Dussek, Abel, Johann Christian Bach and many others. Burney described the situation thus: ‘Germany has furnished a great number of professors of uncommon talents, whose productions and performance, have both charmed and astonished the rest of Europe; and it is hardly too much to say, that the best German musicians, of the present age, with a few exceptions, are to be found out of the country. The musicians of almost every town, and every band in the service of a German prince, however small his dominions, erect themselves into a musical monarchy, mutually jealous of each other, and all unanimously jealous of the Italians, who come into their country.’ (Scholes, Dr. Burney's Musical Tours. ii. 242–3).Google Scholar

10 Christoph Willibald von Gluck, Collected Correspondence and Papers, edited by H. and E. H. Mueller von Asow (London, 1962), passim.Google Scholar

11 By a curious chance, intaglio, or engraving of music, was free in France of all restrictions, whereas printing (by movable characters) was controlled by the owners of the brevet, or the royal patent or Privilège du Roi. I his meant that one had to pay Pierre Ballard ‘seul imprimeur du Roi’) and his descendants for the right to print, but not to engrave, music. (The original brevet, which did not mention music, was granted to Pierre Ballard's father, Robert, by Henri II in 1552.) Fortunately for the new industry, the text of the renewal of the brevet (granted by Louis XIV) specified ‘printing’ but omitted any reference to ‘engraving’.Google Scholar

12 Emily Anderson, ed., The Letters of Mozart and His Family, second edition edited by Alexander Hyatt King and Monica Carolan (London and New York, 1966), 1, 401Google Scholar

13 Anderson, op. cit, i, 474–8.Google Scholar

14 Mozart's spectacular failure to conquer Paris was probably due—if in unequal measure— to his pride, his naïveté in dealing with people of all ranks, and his utter unpractically in matters of money. His inexplicable rejection by his ‘friend’ Baron Grimm and the conspiracy against him instigated by his rival in the composition of symphonies concertantes, Giuseppe Cambini, may have contributed to his defeat, but the fundamental reason lay within himself (see Barry S. Brook, ‘The Symphonie Concertante an Interim Report’, Musical Quarterly, xlvii (1961), 500–502). It is fascinating, if futile, to speculate on the possible consequences if Mozart had accepted the only important position he was offered in France, the organistship at Versailles. As he explained in a letter to his father (14 May, 1778) ‘2000 livres is not such a big sum. It would be so in Germany money, I admit, but here it is not.’ Furthermore (1 May, 1778): ‘The mud in Paris is beyond all description To take a carriage—means that you have the honour of spending four to five livres a day, and all for nothing’ (Anderson, op. cit., ii, 539, 532.)Google Scholar

15 Klaus Hortschansky, ‘Der Musiker als Musikalienhandler in der zweiten Halfte des 18. Jahrhunderts’, Der Sozialstatus des Berufsmusikers vom 17 bis zum 19 Jahrhundert (Kassel, 1971), 83–102Google Scholar

16 Marvin E. Paymer, The Instrumental Music attributed to Giovanni Battista Pergolesi: a Study in Authenticity (unpublished dissertation, City University of New York, 1977); Giovanni Battista Pergolest (1710–1736). a Thematic Catalogue of the Opera Omnia with an Appendix listing Omitted Compositions (New York, 1977).Google Scholar

17 This seemingly incredible fraud, perpetrated by Bailleux to take advantage of Haydn's growing fame in the 1770s, was stamped with Pleyel's approval when he included the six quartets in his complete edition, published from 1802. Alan Tyson, at the Haydn Festival Conference in Washington in October 1975, showed that the name of Hoffstetter is only applicable to the first two quartets, since it is only from the plates of these that Hoffstetter's name was unsuccessfully obliterated. There is no reason to believe that Haydn composed the other four (unidentified) quartets; the evidence that does exist is negative. For example, it is of paramount significance that none of the four is listed in Haydn's own Entwurf-Katalog, the accuracy of which has become increasingly apparent in recent years.Google Scholar

That Bailleux was not the most trustworthy of publishers was recognized as early as 1770 by Johann Adam Hiller. In his Musikalische Nachrichten und Anmerkungen auf das Jahr 1770: Erster Teil (Leipzig, 1770), 37f, he writes about a 1769 Bailleux edition whose title he quotes as ‘Six Simphonies à huit Parties, composées par J. HAYDEN, Maitre de Chapelle à Vienne, mis au jour par Mr. Bailleux, OEuvre VII, à Paris’: 'What M. Bailleux, who calls himself maitre de musique on the title page and marchand de musique elsewhere, in fact means by this “mis au jour” is not as clear as it seems. Did he, as publisher of these symphonies, have them printed at the request or with the acquiescence of the Author at his own bare cost; or did he simply gather together a few unauthorized manuscript copies of Haydn symphonies that found their way to Paris and print them without asking the author or any other knowledgeable person about them Hiller suspected further that the second, third and fourth symphonies were spurious; he was correct about the second. This edition, of which no copy appears to survive, was listed in Breitkopf's 1769 Supplemento IV (p. 5, no. IV) and Westphal's 1782 Verzeichms derer Musicalien (p. 6), and contained the symphonies Hob. I:17, I:Esi, I:29, I:28, I:9 and I:3 (Anthony von Hoboken, Joseph Haydn: Thematisch-bibliographisches Werkverzeichnis, i (Mainz, 1957). 20–21, 252, 32–3, 31–2, 13–14, 7–8). See Walter, Horst, ed., Joseph Haydn, Sinfonien 1764 und 1765, Joseph Haydn Werke, i/4, Kritischer Bericht (Munich and Duisburg, 1964), 32–4.Google Scholar

18 Joel Sachs, ‘Hummel and the pirates’ the Struggle for Musical Copyright', Musical Quarterly, lix (1973), 31–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

19 H. C. Robbins Landon, The Collected Correspondence and London Notebooks of Joseph Haydn (London, 1959), 71.Google Scholar

20 Anderson, op. cit., i, 319.Google Scholar

21 Arnold Schering, Musikgeschichte Leipzigs (Leipzig, 1941), 111Google Scholar

22 Barry S Brook, ed., The Breitkopf Thematic Catalogue, the Six Parts and Sixteen Supplements, 1762 1787 (New York, 1966) Two extracts from the postscript (Vauhernm rung, p 29) of lus Catalogue's Parte Prima (1762) are worth citing here.Google Scholar

‘I present herewith, the first of the promised musical catalogues of all practical works by various authors which may be found in my shop; I have tried to make them recognizable by their themes in so far as space will allow, and to differentiate one from another as one differentiates books by their titles. Fair judges will realize that it is sufficiently troublesome merely to assemble a rather considerable stock of such items, or to wrest them, so to speak, from the hands of certain musicians; but that it is even more troublesome, and a rather difficult task, to arrange them into some kind of order.’Google Scholar

‘If famous composers would themselves not mind compiling a catalogue of their practical works in a free hour and would be kind enough to send it to me, I would not only acknowledge this with many thanks, but would also continue my endeavours, all the more encouraged in proportion to the possibility of my relying on the accuracy of such communications. It does not matter that I would not yet possess the items which appear in such a catalogue, because I would take steps to acquire these at once, should there be any demand for them among music lovers’.Google Scholar

23 Brook, The Breitkopf Thematic Catalogue, p. iv, 286.Google Scholar

24 Rudolf Eller, ‘Thomas, Christian Gottfried’, Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart, xm (Kassel, 1966), cols. 355–6.Google Scholar

25 Hubert Unverricht, ‘Autor—Komponist—Musikverleger’, Musik und Verlag Karl Votterle zum 65. Geburtstag (Kassel, 1968), 562–76Google Scholar

26 A thorough study of his literary output, dealing both with his plans to combat piracy and his description of contemporary concert life, seems to be required. A facsimile edition of Thomas's writing and catalogue, together with an English translation and commentary, is in preparation by the author, who has also written the article on Thomas for the forthcoming sixth edition of Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians.Google Scholar

27 Eller, op cit, col. 356Google Scholar

28 See his Unpartheusche Krιtιk (1798), 98–100, in which he lists and describes his entire output In the Allgemeιne Musikalische Zelung (April, 1802, cols. 479–80), an anonymous critic derides Thomas's concert activities, he describes the seven-chorus setting of Psalm 117 as naιve and beneath criticism Thomas retorts, in the same journal's Intelligenz-Blatt (Julv. 1802, vols 65 67). that there is ‘not a word of truth’ in the critic's letter, he points out numerous specific errors and challenges his attacker to come out from the cover of anonymityGoogle Scholar

29 Eller, op. cit, col 356Google Scholar

30 Only two copies of this work and of the Kuizgefassler Entu urf are known to me, and only one of these is listed in François Lesure, ed, Énts imprumés comernant la musique. Répertoire international des sources musicales, B VI (Munich and Duisburg, 1971). ii, 829 30 Item tiv) in the appendix may be rarerGoogle Scholar

31 This self-serving statement holds only for areas where the practice of engraving had not yet come into its own. In Germany at this time (but not necessarily after 1780) the handwritten copy is more likely to be closer to the composer's original than the print (which was often engraved by pirates in distant cities). The reverse was true for the works of a composer resident in Paris or London. He could often proofread the engraver's work before the pressings were made; that he frequently did so can be seen from the fact that their editions are almost invariably far freer of errors than those of composers in distant cities (See Brook, B., La Symphonιe françaιse, 1, 40 41).Google Scholar

32 Eller, op cit., col 356 (‘das 1776 crsch[ιenene] Verz[eichnis] selbst ist in keinem Ex[emplar] mehr nachweisbar’).Google Scholar

33 The Thomas catalogue may be compared to the original six parts of the Breitkopf catalogue (1762–5) in that it contains 106 manuscript sheets (Bogen) as against the Breitkopf total of 200 printed pages. According to evidence from copying bills in Harburg Castle, the Bogen may be defined as a double sheet of paper which, if written on both sides, would yield four pages of music. However, there is no way of knowing the size of Thomas's sheet (Breitkopfs page is rather small) or the number of incipits included on it (the average number of entries per page in the Breitkopl catalogue is eighteen, or three sets of six). Both give their copying costs as 4 Gr. (or Gl) per Bogen For Thomas, this includes the composer's Honorarum (Mitteilungspers of 1 Gr. per sheet, which is applied only to works under contract with him. Otherwise Thomas's price is 3 Gr per Bogen (Thomas's non-thematic Erster Nachtrag lists something over 1,000 compositions, including thirty complete operas. The wording and layout of its Italian title page is almost identical to that of the Breitkopf supplements.)Google Scholar

34 See C.-G Stellan Morner, ed., Joseph Haydn, Sinfomen 1767 1772, Joseph Haydn Werke, 1/6, Kritischer Bericht (Munich and Duisburg, 1969J, 20, source 24 and footnote 40. I should like to thank Dr. Georg Feder and Dr. Irmgard Becker-Glauch for their kindness in helping me to obtain copies of these documents.Google Scholar

35 Information about such copies, preferably with watermark data included, will be most welcomeGoogle Scholar

36 Alexander Weinmann has since 1950 published numerous books and articles relating to Viennese publishers (including a number of catalogues in the series Beitrage zur Geschichte des Alt-Wiener Musikverlages, published at Vienna), such as his Vollständiges Verlagsverzeichnis Artaria & Comp. (Vienna, 1952); sec also Albert Dunning, Joseph Schmitt: Leben und Kompositionen des Eberbacher Zisterziensers und Amsterdamer Musikverlegers, 1734–1791, Beitrage zur mittelrheinischen Musikgeschichte, i (Amsterdam, 1962); Anik Devriès, Edition et commerce de la musique gravée à Paris dans la première moitié du XVIIIe siécle: Les Boivin, les Leclere, Archives de l'édition musicale française, i (Geneva, 1976); Cari Johansson, French Music Publishers' Catalogues of the Second Half of the Eighteenth Century (Stockholm, 1955)Google Scholar

37 Albert Gohler, Die Messkataloge im Dienste der musikalischen Gescluchtsforschung (Leipzig, 1901, reprinted Hilversum, 1965), Verzeuhu der in den Frankfutter und Lipziger Muskaialog, in Jahre 1964 bis 1959 aungzergten Musikalien (Leipzig, 1907, reprinted Hilversum, 1965)Google Scholar

38 Op citGoogle Scholar

39 See, for example, Wolfgang Matthaus, ‘Beitrage zur Musikgeschichte Bonns in den Jahren 1772 1791 Quellen und Bernchte aus zeitgenossischen Tageszeitungen’, Banner Geschichts-blätter. xvi (1967), 136 52Google Scholar

40 Eugene K Wolf and Jean K Wolf, ‘A Newly Identified Complex of Manuscripts from Mannheim’, Journal of the American Musicological Society, xxvii (1974), 379 437, Robert Munster and Robert Machold, Thematischer Katalog der Musikhandschriften der ehemaligen Klolerkirchen Weyarn. Tegernsee und Benediktbeuern (Munich, 1971)Google Scholar