Exhibitions
"I prefer your shop to all others"
Beethoven and the Leipzig Music Publisher Breitkopf & Härtel
25.05.2007 to 18.08.2007
The music publisher Breitkopf & Härtel, founded in Leipzig in 1719, was one of the most important and traditional publishing houses during Beethoven's lifetime and is still one of the most important today. After an initial collaboration in 1802/03, Gottfried Christoph Härtel became Beethoven's main publisher in the years 1808-1812. During this time, some of Beethoven's most important works were published by the Leipzig publishing house. In this context, an extensive and highly interesting correspondence was conducted, often going beyond the immediate publishing business, to which we owe a great deal of valuable information - for example on Beethoven's relationship with Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. The exhibition and the accompanying book describe the complex relationship between composer and publisher, the journey of selected works from the sketches to the first print, as well as the significant contribution that the publishing house made to the cultivation of Beethoven's oeuvre even after the composer's death.