Universal Edition

Universal Edition Aktiengesellschaft
legal form	Corporation
founding	1901
Seat	Vienna , Austria
management	Johann Juranek, Astrid Koblanck, Stefan Ragg
Branch	Music publisher
Website	www.universaledition.com

48.20025 16.372758333333Coordinates: 48 ° 12 ′ 0.9 ″ N , 16 ° 22 ′ 21.9 ″ E

Universal Edition AG (often abbreviated as UE ) is an Austrian music publisher founded in 1901 with headquarters at Karlsplatz 6 in Vienna .

history

Universal Edition common stock (1908)

The main reason behind the founding of the publishing house under the name “Universal Edition Actiengesellschaft” in Vienna in 1901 was the intention of Austria-Hungary to become independent of sheet music imports, especially from the dominant music publishers in Leipzig . The founders were Adolf Robitschek , Josef Weinberger and Bernhard Herzmansky von Doblinger . From 1907 until his death in 1932, Emil Hertzka , who had worked there from the beginning, was its director.

While the focus was initially on music from the classical and romantic epochs, the focus of the publications shifted to contemporary music after just a few years. In 1906, for example, UE took over the rights to Mahler's symphonies 1 to 4 from other publishers , and in 1908 concluded a direct contract with the composer for the printing of the 8th symphony . Under Emil Hertzka, names like Schönberg , Berg , Webern , Zemlinsky , Marx , Janáček , Szymanowski , Bartók , Kodály , Weill , Wellesz , Erwin Schulhoff , Franz Schreker and Eisler followed . In 1932 the UE catalog contained around 10,000 numbers.

From 1927 there was a cooperation with the music section of the Soviet State Publishing House, through which Universal Edition became the Western European publishing house of the Russian avant-garde. Works by Nikolai Roslawez , Alexander Mossolow , Serge Protopopov , Leonid Polowinkin , Alexander Kerin , Grigori Kerin , Dmitri Melkich and many other Russian avant-garde artists were published partly as reprints of the original Russian editions, but also in editions specially engraved in Vienna In connection with this, the very progressive work of the Scriabin contemporary Alexej Stanchinsky was posthumously published. The cooperation has not been maintained since the 1930s.

In 1919 the publishing house published the music magazine Musikblätter des Anbruch , which appeared until 1937. 1924–1930 the desk and baton were added. The publishing house successfully used both organs to bring its publishing composers into international discussion through articles, reports and reviews. Another "best seller" was the series Music for Guitar, launched in 1939 and published by Karl Scheit .

In the Third Reich , the publisher Alfred Schlee obtained diplomacy from the National Socialists to settle the debt of the heavily indebted publisher with regard to the preservation of a monument to degenerate music , thereby saving the publisher and numerous manuscripts from ruin. The Jewish part of the publishing house editors was forced to share the fate of numerous published composers and banned from their profession, driven into exile or deported .

During the Second World War, the company was in German hands and also published works such as Franz Schmidt's German Resurrection (1940). After 1945 it returned to Austrian ownership and continued the tradition of including contemporary music in its program. The series “die reihe” published by Herbert Eimert in 1955 with the help of Stockhausen in the UE provided information on serial and electronic music . The publishing program, which in 2000 comprised around 32,000 titles, includes not only other magazines and textbooks, but also pocket scores, and since 1972, under the title “Wiener Urtext Edition”, numerous Urtext editions from pre-classical to romantic music, later also from the 20th century (jointly with the publishing house B. Schott's Sons , Mainz).

The contemporary composers in the UE publishing program include Wolfgang Rihm , Pierre Boulez , Arvo Pärt , Karlheinz Stockhausen , Friedrich Cerha , Luciano Berio , Johannes Maria Staud , Georg Friedrich Haas , Georges Lentz , Daniel Schnyder and Vykintas Baltakas .

literature

Carl Dahlhaus, Hans Heinrich Eggebrecht (Ed.): Brockhaus Riemann Music Lexicon. Vol. 4. Schott, Mainz 1989. ISBN 3-7957-8304-6
Barbara Boisits: Universal Edition (UE). In: Oesterreichisches Musiklexikon . Online edition, Vienna 2002 ff., ISBN 3-7001-3077-5 ; Print edition: Volume 5, Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Vienna 2006, ISBN 3-7001-3067-8 .

Web links

Homepage of the publisher

Notes and individual references

↑ A branch exists e.g. B. in London (2/3 Fareham Street, Dean Street)
↑ Detlef Gojowy: New Soviet Music of the 20s . Laaber-Verlag, Laaber 1980, ISBN 3-921518-09-1 (The appendix contains an overview of the works of Russian avant-garde artists with the publisher's name, a large part of which is marked "Universal Edition").
↑ Currently (2018) it is possible to purchase works by Russian avant-garde artists on direct request, and some of them are even advertised on the publisher's website.
↑ P [eter Päffge] n: The great guitar music publishers: Universal Edition, Vienna. In: Guitar & Laute 1, 1979, 2, pp. 41-43; here: p. 43

[1] A branch exists e.g. B. in London (2/3 Fareham Street, Dean Street)

[2] Detlef Gojowy: New Soviet Music of the 20s . Laaber-Verlag, Laaber 1980, ISBN 3-921518-09-1 (The appendix contains an overview of the works of Russian avant-garde artists with the publisher's name, a large part of which is marked "Universal Edition").

[3] Currently (2018) it is possible to purchase works by Russian avant-garde artists on direct request, and some of them are even advertised on the publisher's website.

[4] P [eter Päffge] n: The great guitar music publishers: Universal Edition, Vienna. In: Guitar & Laute 1, 1979, 2, pp. 41-43; here: p. 43