Adolph Martin Schlesinger

Adolph Schlesinger is a redirect to this article. For other people see Adolf Schlesinger ; on the company see Richard König, Rauchwarenhandlung .

Adolph Martin Schlesinger (first Abraham Moses Schlesinger , born  October 8, 1769 in Zülz in Upper Silesia , †  October 11, 1838 in Berlin ) was a German music publisher and music dealer .

Adolph Martin Schlesinger

Life

At the age of about 16, Abraham Moses Schlesinger moved from his hometown, Zülz in Upper Silesia, to the capital Berlin. Here he participated in the founding of the Society of Friends in 1792 . From 1795 he ran a bookstore in his apartment on Brüderstraße and as a traveler . After the new Prussian town order was passed, Schlesinger became a citizen of Berlin in 1809 and was able to officially open a book and music store at 8 Breiten Straße at Easter 1811 . In 1812 he decided to change his first name and called himself Adolph Martin from then on, but remained true to the Jewish faith.

In 1814 Schlesinger signed a contract with Carl Maria von Weber and secured the most important works by the composer. The popularity of Weber's Freischütz made Adolf Martin Schlesinger the most successful music publisher in Prussia . The vernacular therefore called the business building Unter den Linden 34, acquired in 1823, Schreifritzhaus . The elegant mahogany interior of the shop was designed by Karl Friedrich Schinkel .

Just two years after the first publication of the Freischütz , Schlesinger brought three complaints about unauthorized reprints . Schlesinger turned to the king to "plead for the protection" of his "property" after he had lost two trials. As a music publisher, Schlesinger carried out most of the reprinting processes throughout Germany in the following years. The problem of reprints became a central theme in his life. The Prussian law of 1837 and the subsequent federal decree left traces of his activities, because with his submissions and requests for privileges he had repeatedly made the special problems of processing music the subject of ministerial consultations.

In 1819 Schlesinger sent his son Maurice Schlesinger to Ludwig van Beethoven . Beethoven gave him the dedication piece Faith and Hope WoO 174 and left his Scottish Songs op. 108, the last three piano sonatas op. 109–111 and the Bagatelles op. 119 to the publisher. Other historically significant publications came from the composers Gaspare Spontini and Luigi Cherubini , Johann Nepomuk Hummel , Carl Loewe and Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy .

Schlesinger tried to influence cultural life and published four magazines. Der Freimütige , an entertainment paper for educated, impartial readers , appeared between 1825 and 1835, the Berliner Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung edited by Adolf Bernhard Marx from 1824 and 1830, the Berliner Conversationsblatt from 1827 to 1838 (1830 to 1835 merged with the Freimüthigen ) and from 1828 the Berliner Kunst-Blatt .

At an advanced age, Schlesinger, who had lost an eye in an accident, appeared to contemporaries as "[...] a short, stocky, stout man, whose drive, entrepreneurial spirit and business acumen can be seen immediately when he has one eye - he missed the left one; - eyed the visitor sharply. ”He left his widow a fortune in the millions. The business was continued by his son Heinrich (originally Heymann) Schlesinger (born 1807) until the company was sold to Robert Emil Lienau in 1864.

literature

• The music in the past and present . Kassel 1997
• Friedemann Kawohl, Copyright of Music in Prussia 1820–1840. Tutzing: Hans Schneider 2002
• Robert Schumann in correspondence with the Schlesinger publishing house in Berlin. Edited by Hrosvith Rahmen and Thomas Synofzik , in: Robert and Clara Schumann's correspondence with publishers in Berlin and Hamburg. Edited by Hrosvith Dahmen, Michael Heinemann , Thomas Synofzik and Konrad Sziedat (=  Schumann-Briefedition , Series III, Volume 6), Cologne 2009, pp. 125–221.

Documents

Letters from Schlesinger are in the holdings of the Leipzig music publisher CF Peters in the Leipzig State Archives .

supporting documents

1. ^ Börsenblatt for the German book trade , April 1, 1910.