Kataloge der Universitätsbibliothek Eichstätt. Das Bucharchiv Hans Schneider: Musikantiquariat und Verlag 1949-2002

The firm of Hans Schneider in Tutzing near Munich has occupied an illustrious place in the ranks of academic publishers and antiquarian dealers in the field of music over the last half-century. Starting off in the antiquarian business in 1949, Schneider has issued to date almost 400 catalogues, distinguished for the quality of items on offer, their bibliographical descriptions, and the elegant layout. Over the years numerous major autograph manuscripts and rarities of every kind have passed through the firm's hands, although the catalogues have rarely been fruitful ground for bargain hunters. In 1958 the firm published its first book, Hans Zingerle's short study Tonalität und Melodieführung in der Klauseln der Troubadours- und Trouvèreslieder—hardly likely to have been a bestseller, but typical in that scholarly merit has consistently been the overriding consideration in the selection of works for publication. Musicology in all its branches owes Schneider a great debt, and the range of publications is truly astonishing: university monograph series (often deriving from dissertations), library and exhibition catalogues, Festschriften, journals and other publications of specialist societies, reprints of standard works, and a few select facsimiles of manuscripts, the monographs alone amounting to some 700 titles in 840 volumes. Among them, Hans Schneider himself has been the author of three exemplary studies of German music publishers. In addition, many a scholar has been pleasantly surprised at the length of time that titles remain in print.

Schneider was born in Eichstätt, and it is therefore entirely appropriate that he should have made the generous gift of a complete set of the firm's catalogues and publications to the university library there. This handsome volume, carefully prepared by Helga König, thus provides a valuable overview of the Schneider firm's output. Descriptions of the monographs, series, periodicals, and catalogues are complemented by name, title, and chronological indexes. In particular, it is good to have detailed listings of the catalogues, for many of them are thematic in character—those devoted to individual composers or publishers are sometimes of particular value—and it is not possible to obtain such information from standard bibliographical databases. There is only one regrettable omission. The majority of the firm's monographs have been issued within series, yet although the various series themselves are listed in a separate section, there is no indication there of which volumes belong within which series. Since items in the catalogue are through-numbered, it would have been a simple matter to provide in the series entry cross-references to the numbering of the individual volumes as listed in the monograph section. Otherwise, this volume, stoutly bound as is the firm's custom, is a worthy monument to more than fifty years of service to scholars and collectors alike.