Music Business, Institutions and Organizations

(b ?Rome, Nov 24, 1747; d Casinalbo, nr Modena, Aug 15, 1798). Italian composer. According to Manferrari, he was born at S Damaso, near Modena. He studied in Naples and had his first large work, the oratorio Il Tobia, performed in Rome in 1765. Having gained recognition as a harpsichordist and conductor in Turin and in Paris at the Concert Spirituel, he visited Verona and Venice to prepare his first operas, Ezio and Il matrimonio per concorso, for Carnival 1767. At about this time he married the buffa singer Maria Lavinia Guadagni (b Lodi, 21 Nov 1735; d Padua, c1790), sister of the celebrated castrato Gaetano Guadagni; both were employed by the King's Theatre, London, for which Alessandri composed the comic operas La moglie fedele (1768) and Il re alla caccia (1769). Although he must have visited Vienna for the première of his opera ...

German family firm of wind instrument makers. The business, located in Mainz, was established in 1782 by Franz Ambros Alexander (b Miltenberg, July 22, 1753; d Mainz, Dec 1, 1802), who was described in a Mainz Cathedral report of the same year as a wood-turner and wind instrument maker. Portraits depict Franz Ambros and his son Philipp (1787–1864) with clarinets. After his death, Alexander's business was continued by his widow and two of his sons, Claudius (1783–1816) and Philipp, later joined by a third, Kaspar Anton (1803–72). Under the direction of Philipp and Kaspar Anton the firm became known as Gebrüder Alexander, the name it still bears. Kaspar Anton's two sons Franz Anton (1838–1926) and Georg Philip (i) (1849–97) became the third generation to direct the company. Woodwind instruments, mainly for military use, were the firm's main products until the mid-19th century. By that time, however, band instrumentation had become more brass orientated; after Philipp's death in ...

(b ?Milan, c1710; d Frankfurt, c1792). Italian cellist and composer. Although early sources (Eitner, Rudhart) claimed a Milanese origin for Aliprandi, the family has not been definitely traced. One of the numerous Italians who found careers north of the Alps, Aliprandi first appears in the records of the Bavarian court at Munich on 1 October 1731 as a chamber and court musician, with a yearly stipend of 1000 florins. On 22 August 1737 he succeeded G.B. Ferrandini as composer of chamber music; on 11 March 1744 he was promoted to Konzertmeister, with his salary increased to 1200 florins. By 1777 this amount had been reduced to 1105 florins, and in 1778 he retired with a pension of 500 florins. In 1791 he was living in Frankfurt; a petition by his son Bernardo Maria dated May 1793 indicates that he had died by then.

Aliprandi’s works for the Bavarian court opera include ...

(b Munich, Feb 5, 1747; d Munich, Feb 19, 1801). Italian cellist and composer, son of Bernardo Aliprandi. The young Bernardo probably studied with his father and, like many cellists of the era, would have been familiar with the viol. He began playing the cello for the Munich court between ...

(b Venice, 1754; d Ireland, after 1801). Italian soprano. She made her début in 1770 in Venice and in 1771 went from Florence to Mannheim, possibly on a recommendation by Casanova to the Mannheim court poet, Mattia Verazi. Holzbauer gave her singing lessons and employed her as second soubrette in the court opera (1771–5). She made her Mannheim début in 1771 in Piccinni's Gli stravaganti (Nerina) and appeared the following year at the palace theatre in Schwetzingen in Gassmann's L’amore artigiano (Angiolina) and Sacchini’s La contadina in corte (Tancia); Burney gave a glowing report of her. After 1778 she sang in Venice and Florence, in 1781 in London, making her début there in Anfossi’s I viaggiatori felici. On 20 July 1783 she was engaged by Bertholdi at a salary of 1000 ducats as prima donna buffa at the Dresden court opera, where Mozart heard her and placed her above Ferrarese (letter of ...

The achievements of Augsburg’s music scribes, engravers, printers and publishers are among the finest in southern Germany. Outstanding music calligraphers, including Leonhard Wagner, wrote splendid manuscripts at the abbey of St Ulrich and St Afra during the 15th and 16th centuries, and at approximately the same time early German music printing culminated in the magnificent choral incunabula of Ratdolt. Music printing with movable type was introduced to Germany by Oeglin, who printed the earliest odes of the German Humanists; Johann Miller, Sigmund Grimm and Marx Wirsung similarly served the Humanist movement. In the mid-16th century Melchior Kriesstein and Philipp Ulhart printed anthologies edited by Salminger. The first large retail stock of printed music in southern Germany was established in Augsburg (with affiliated branches in Vienna and Tübingen) by Georg Willer, who published his first catalogue for the Frankfurt Fair of 1564. The printing houses established by Valentin Schönig and Johannes Praetorius were continued after the Thirty Years War by Andreas Erfurt, J.J. Schönig, J.C. Wagner, Jakob Koppmayer and Andreas Maschenbauer. The booksellers Goebel, Kroniger, Schlüter and Happach and printers Simon Utzschneider, J.M. Labhart, August Sturm and J.K. Bencard further contributed to Augsburg’s active trade in music selling. In the 18th century the Lotter firm assumed a leading role in music publishing as did the music engravers J.F. and J.C. Leopold and the publishers Matthäus Rieger and J.K. Gombart. In ...

London concert series organized between 1765 and 1781 by J.C. Bach and C.F. Abel; see London §V 2..

Abel: (4) Carl Friedrich Abel

Bach, §III: (12) Johann Christian Bach, §3: Mannheim and London, 1772–82

Symphony, §I, 12: 18th century: London

London (i), §V, 2: Musical life: 1660–1800: Concert life

The earliest choral singing in Boston was the first settlers’ congregational psalm singing, which continued through later times of controversy over the relative virtues of the old style and the cultivated new style promoted in the singing schools. Church and community choirs were formed throughout New England from the 1750s. The work of George K. Jackson, who in 1812 organized a concert of Handel’s music, was instrumental in broadening the musical repertory of Boston’s churches.

The Handel and Haydn Society was formed for the purpose of ‘cultivating and improving a correct taste in the performance of sacred music, and also to introduce into more general practice the works of Handel, Haydn, and other eminent composers’. It gave its first concert on 25 December 1815 and served as the prototype for similar organizations in other cities. At Christmas 1818 the society gave its first performance of the complete Messiah; on 16 February 1819...

The first music known to have been printed and published in North America appeared in the ninth edition of the Bay Psalm Book (Boston, 1698), in which 13 tunes are printed from woodblocks. The next appeared in two instruction books, one by John Tufts (1721 or earlier), the other by Thomas Walter (also 1721), which was probably the first North American music printed from engraved metal plates. Two collections by Josiah Flagg (1764 and 1766) and at least part of William Billings’s The New-England Psalm-Singer (1770) were engraved by Paul Revere. The first American set of type for printing music was cast in Boston by William (or possibly John) Norman, first used in the Boston Magazine in 1783.

Between 1798 and 1804 P.A. von Hagen (father and son) issued about 100 publications. Graupner was Boston’s principal music publisher for about 25 years, beginning in ...

Early public performances of music were organized in private homes, coffee houses and religious meeting houses. A law of 1750, re-enacted in 1785, prohibited theatrical entertainments of all kinds, but it was commonly circumvented by billing such events as ‘lectures’ or ‘readings’. In 1792 the New Exhibition Room was opened for ‘lectures, moral and entertaining’ with a ‘gallery of portraits, songs, feats of tumbling, and ballet pantomine’ but it was promptly closed in 1793.

Public demand brought swift change, and in 1793, the Boston Theatre, designed by Charles Bulfinch to be one of the grandest in the USA, was opened. It was often called the Federal Street Theatre, especially after the Haymarket Theatre opened in 1796, and spoken drama and ballad opera were popular on both stages. Graupner later had a concert room in the same building as his home and shop. His Philharmonic concerts took place in Pythian Hall and later the Pantheon. The Handel and Haydn Society’s early performances were given in churches such as Stone Chapel and then Boylston Hall. From ...

Wind instrument makers of Strasbourg. [Life data refer to Strasbourg unless noted.] Jean (Johannes) II Keller (1710–78) was admitted as a turner in the corporation of carpenters in 1736. His three sons were woodwind makers. Jean III Keller (b 14 Dec 1737; d 1785), his first son, was described as ‘Instrumentenmacher’ at his marriage in 1765 and upon the births of his four children. He used the mark ‘[fleur de lis] / KELLER / A STRASBOURG’. Isaac Keller (b 26 Jan 1740; d 11 June 1802), the second son, was received into the corporation of carpenters in 1785, at the death of his brother Jean III. He joined the third son, Jean Philippe Keller (b 10 Nov 1743; d 1 July 1794) by 1790 to create a new partnership, marking their instruments ‘[angel trumpeter] / LES / FRERES/ KELLER’. Etienne Ozi (...

(b Tennessee, Oct 13, 1792; d Franklin, TN, Oct 18, 1859). American singing-school teacher and tunebook compiler. Nothing is known of his early activities or training, but by 1817 Carden was an established singing-school teacher in the Tennessee area. He taught a singing school in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1820, but probably returned to Tennessee shortly thereafter. In September 1822, Carden advertised a singing school in Nashville; he apparently continued to live in the Nashville area until 1850, when he moved to Williamson County (probably Franklin). His first tunebook, The Missouri Harmony, “published by the compiler” in St. Louis but printed in Cincinnati (1820, 2/1850/R 1975, 1994; modern revision, 2005), was the most popular fasola shape-note tunebook of the South and West until the Civil War, achieving at least 24 editions and reprints through 1857; however, Carden seems to have given up his interest in the book after the first edition, and subsequent issues were apparently the work of the Cincinnati printers. Carden procured shape-note music type and published two more tunebooks himself: ...

English family of music publishers, music sellers and instrument dealers. The firm was established in London.

Dale, Joseph (b 1750; d Edinburgh, Aug 21, 1821)

Dale, William (b London, 1780–85; d 1827)

Dale, James (fl c1800)

(b Lille, June 8, 1731; d Brussels, July 30, 1804). French bookseller, printer, and type founder, active in the southern Netherlands. Born into a family of printers, he was the son of Henri de Boubers and Marie Catherine Gavroy. He married Marie-Thérèse Joseph Panckoucke, a sister of the French bookseller Charles-Joseph Panckoucke, and later married Marie-Thérèse Joseph d’Audenarde. A bookseller in Dunkirk by about 1747, then a printer-bookseller in Liège from 1761, he established himself in Brussels in 1768 after two years of apprenticeship with Jean-Joseph Boucherie. On October 18, 1769 he opened the first permanent bookshop in the Théâtre de la Monnaie selling librettos of lyric works, some with music. De Boubers was also a type founder, at first in partnership with Mathias Rosart, son of the printer Jacques-François Rosart. He produced new printing type in 1779 which he sold to numerous printers in the Netherlands as well as to individuals, including the Prince de Ligne. De Boubers edited some occasional pieces, two of which were published for the inauguration of Charles de Lorraine’s statue in Brussels in ...

[Henry]

(b Lövånger, Swedish Lapland, 1720; d ?Stockholm, 1782). Swedish printer and publisheractive in London. After studies at Uppsala University and some years of clerical work he became a general book printer. About 1760 he developed his own version of Breitkopf’s improvements in printing music from movable type, using a system of 166 characters. He applied for a patent in 1763, and in the following year was granted a privilege for music printing in Sweden for 25 years. Lacking economic support, however, he left Sweden in 1767 and in November of that year arrived in London, where he began to issue music in his new type. After submitting his first work, an edition of Uttini’s Six Sonatas op.1, to the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce, he obtained a resolution from that body that his method of printing was superior and much cheaper than any that had been in use in Great Britain; he later printed this resolution as a preface to his edition of Sarti’s Three Sonatas....

(b Neustadt, 1759; d Munich, Sept 18, 1818). German composer and lithographer. After early training in the seminary at Amberg, he moved to Munich, where he continued studies in music and philosophy and became a court musician. There he met Alois Senefelder, the inventor of lithography, initially when he was commissioned to compose some songs in connection with Senefelder's theatrical activities. In 1796 Gleissner was approached by Senefelder to make commercial use of his method of relief printing from stone for the publication of music. Gleissner was the first to see the possibilities of this and had his 12 neue Lieder produced by it the same year. This was the beginning of a partnership that lasted over 20 years. Between 1796 and 1798 Senefelder and Gleissner printed music from etched stones, but in 1798 or early in 1799 Senefelder developed a chemical method of printing from stone, for which he and Gleissner were granted a 15-year privilege on ...

(b Geffosses, Normandy, 1740; d Brussels, Dec 24, 1806). French bookseller, publisher, and agent, active in Brussels. First a seller of engravings, he became one of the principal music sellers in Brussels from 1774. He published the works of Honauer, Pauwels, and G. Ferrari, and made a request to the Milan engraver C.G. Barbieri to publish the works of C.-L.-J. André. Godefroy was also the Brussels agent for numerous Parisian publishers, his name appearing on the title-page of publications by La Chevardière (for the works of Anfossi and Paisiello), Sieber (Cramer, Haydn, Kammel), Durieu (Dalayrac), Heina (Eichner, J.A. Lorenziti, Vanhal), Mmes Le Menu and Boyer (J.H. Schröter), J.-P. Deroullède (B. Lorenziti, Pieltain, Anton Stamitz), Mondhare (Staes), Bailleux (Chevalier de Saint-Georges), and Camand (Jean Cremont). Being the Brussels agent for Heina, Godefroy was the first agent to distribute the music of Mozart in Brussels with a Parisian edition of the ...

(b London, 1736; d ?London, after 1789). English musician. He was educated at Westminster School and Trinity Hall, Cambridge. In January 1771 he was admitted to Lincoln's Inn. Little is known of his life, but he is important as having attempted to publish, between 1788 and 1790, the first complete edition of Purcell (see A.H. King: ‘Benjamin Goodison's Compete Edition of Purcell’, MMR, lxxxi, 1951, pp.81–9). Details of his elaborate plan are known from the five editions of his prospectus preserved in the Royal Music Library ( GB-Lbl ). Though Goodison was able to issue less than a dozen works, and his venture failed through lack of support, it forms a milestone in the progress of British appreciation of the range of Purcell's genius. It also ranks, at least by intention, with Arnold’s contemporary edition of Handel as the earliest of all the collected editions issued in any country....