Klarinet Archive - Posting 000262.txt from 1995/01

From: "Dan Leeson: LEESON@-----.EDU>
Subj: Edison Denisov clarinet concerto
Date: Mon, 16 Jan 1995 13:38:43 -0500

Actually, I have no information on the work, but the original listing
with respect to this subject mentioned that the publisher Breitkopf
& Hartel was involved and that this could slow things down. That is
an item I want to comment on.

B&H before WW2 was in Leipzig. It was, perhaps, the world's largest
and most profitable music publisher. It was almost 100% destroyed in
the war. After 1945, the remnants of the company opened up in
Weisbaden, then west Germany. Somehow, and in ways that have mystified
me, Leipzig reopened and began to make many of their prewar editions
avaliable once again. They were always superior.

So the East Germany company, not at all related to the West German
company, was publishing the same editions as the West German company
and using the same name. Don't ask me questions. I never could figure
it out. And the East German company's editions were bigger, better print,
but cheap paper.

But when East and West Germany combined a few years ago, the two groups
recombined and, for a while, were considered to be ready to buy up
some pretty important firms, such as Barenreiter in Kassel.

The problem is worse. Because East Germany had and respected few
copyright laws of music publishing houses in the West, they made lots
of stuff available at much cheaper prices than the west. Now that
the two B&H houses have combined, there is a matter of ownership of
materials that B&H Leipzig was publishing with "borrowed" copyright.

I think it is going to take a couple of years, maybe decades to get
the matter straightened out. And if you don't live in or near
Leipzig, anything that they may have, such as the concerto being
inquired about, is just not going to be available to you.

But just in case, you should try a big American house that deals with
European editions. Try European American Music, in Valley Forge, PA.
If they can't get it, no one can.

====================================
Dan Leeson, Los Altos, California
(leeson@-----.edu)
====================================