On the Publishing and Dissemination of Music 1500-1850

The history of the publishing and dissemination of music is sometimes thought to be a dusty subject of interest only to bibliographers. Yet as Hans Lenneberg argues in the introduction to this book, it is a topic central to the social and economic history of music. By studying publishing, we see how music was traded as a commodity and exchanged for its symbolic value. We start to learn about the consumers of music, including their social background and the reasons for their purchases. We also become aware of musical authorship, whereby composers gain a public reputation via their output and sometimes act possessively about their works.

Lenneberg's posthumously published book is the first overview of this topic, apart from Donald Krummel's authoritative article 'Publishing' in New Grove. Lenneberg surveys the circulation of musical texts from the pioneers of music printing in the sixteenth century to the emergence of a mass market for sheet music in the nineteenth century. Some areas in his purview have already been well studied, such as the Italian printing firms of Gardano and Scotto. For other topics, however, such as the patchy importance of printing to J. S. Bach and Telemann, Lenneberg provides one of the first accounts. His book has a wide geographical scope, comparing developments across western Europe and noting when the centre of European music publishing moved between countries (e.g. to France in the 1820s, p. 101).

Several themes recur across the chronological span of Lenneberg's account. He notes that scriptoria have often existed to supply musicians with manuscripts, whether in the sixteenth century (p. 19), in Handel's London (p. 81), in 1780s Leipzig (p. 74), or in Italian opera of the 1800s (p. 78). Another recurrent theme is the fluctuating level of musical literacy, whether seen in the sixteenth-century customs officers and leather workers who owned music (p. 30) or in the expansion of the music-buying public with the popularity of pianos from around 1800 (p. 96). Particularly important is the persistent tension between publication and control. Even as late as the 1760s, some patrons prohibited their musicians from circulating pieces (p. 66); at about the same time, copyright began to be claimed by composers who wanted royalties from their publishers or to prevent pirated editions (pp. 109-23).

Lenneberg's survey is based mainly on secondary literature, but he shows an impressive grasp of musicological and bibliographical writing in all the major European languages. He draws attention to many valuable studies that hitherto have been little cited, such as Werner Braun's insights into German publishing around 1630 or Iain Fenlon's investigation of the catalogues of the Italian firm Tini. Lenneberg always treats secondary sources critically, observing that in Susan Bain's dissertation 'many statements are so insufficiently documented that one hesitates to use them' (p. 133). He is also able to discern the wood from the trees, a particularly valuable quality in a bibliographer. Many previous studies have focused on a particular printer or music book and have rarely asked if their conclusions hold more widely. Lenneberg, however, is adept at putting case studies into context. He asks, for instance, whether a sixteenth-century composer such as Costanzo Festa was unusual in expecting payment from a publisher (p. 44). He also outlines the pitfalls of statistical studies (p. 32) and the challenges of determining the relative cost of sheet music (pp. 22-5); and his discussion of musical literacy observes the difficulties in quantifying such a skill, particularly given 'the manifold ways that literacy could be acquired' (p. 52).

Some readers may be perturbed by Lenneberg's heavy use of secondary literature, in particular his tendency to quote extensively. At times this monograph reads like a scrapbook of extracts from other people's writings; it is almost as if we are peeping at Lenneberg's private notes, a feeling increased by his trenchant comments in the annotated bibliography (e.g. 'a slight contribution', p. 152; 'somewhat pretentious', p. 153). Certainly the book does not strike the commanding tone that Krummel assumed for his article in New Grove. Moreover the extensive quotation of other scholars can sometimes prevent full exploration of the questions that Lenneberg poses. The most satisfying sections of the book, indeed, are those on topics such as eighteenth-century Germany on which he has already published and can offer authoritative conclusions. Elsewhere his reliance on secondary sources leaves him prone to error: for instance, he gives 1689 as the first date for music-engraving in Germany (p. 51), when in fact Johann Ulrich Steigleder's Ricercar tabulatura of 1624 was the first of several engraved keyboard books in the first half of the century.

Lenneberg finished a manuscript of this book just before his death in 1994 and subsequently it was edited for publication by 'several of us', to quote Ralph P. Locke's foreword. We must be grateful to these unnamed editors for bringing Lenneberg's work to light. However, it is a shame they chose to break up the text with frequent headings and subheadings, for Lenneberg's thoughts rove widely and do not fit comfortably into such a framework. Some of the sections thus created are as short as five lines (p. 56), while others wander from the specified topic. A segment headed 'Psalters' mainly makes general observations about print runs (p. 36), while a section on copying in France has a long digression on the transmission of Bach's music in Germany (p. 80). Although the numerous headings help the reader navigate around the book, they imply a more systematic treatment than was Lenneberg's intention and so make his text seem rather cursory and scatty.

Sadly the book has not been properly copyedited or proofread. There are numerous misprints (pp. 13, 37, 39) and several howlers of vocabulary and grammar, including a confusion of 'alternate' with 'alternative' (p. 101) and a misplaced apostrophe (p. 97). Problems of format include missing italics (p. 15) and a failure to display long quotations (p. 34). Foreign quotations are treated inconsistently, sometimes being left in the original language (p. 112) and sometimes being offered in 'free translation' without the originals (p. 63). It is a shame that Lenneberg's wise comments are marred by such shoddy presentation.

Despite such flaws, this book offers numerous insights into an important topic. Rather than assuming a magisterial tone, Lenneberg lets the voices of other scholars speak and then wryly observes the limits of their work. This is a questing book that suggests numerous directions for future research, not only of the music trade in previous centuries but also of present-day developments including electronic publishing.