(b Eichstätt, Feb 23, 1921). German antiquarian dealer, publisher and bibliographer. He founded his antiquarian business at Tutzing near Munich in 1949, issuing a number of catalogues each year. Several of these have become useful works of reference on individual composers, including Brahms, Mozart, Paganini and Schumann, while an innovative series devoted to individual publishers, including Schott, André and Universal Edition, has also been produced. By 1998 the firm had issued over 350 antiquarian catalogues, usually devoted to one of three specialist areas: important manuscripts and letters, first and early editions, and music literature. Through its prolific but scrupulously detailed catalogues, the firm established itself as one of the most important in postwar Europe.
In 1958 Schneider founded a publishing house which has produced some fine facsimiles such as Beethoven's Missa solemnis (Kyrie only) and Brahms's Clarinet Trio. A significant aspect of the firm's activity has been the publication of scholarly series such as the pioneering Musikbibliographische Arbeiten guides to the first editions of composers from Mozart to Messiaen. Other series include Orff-Dokumentation (8 vols.), a catalogue of music in the Hoboken Collection (...
