Like notes on the staff...

...these are the tales of music publishing.  Reading about the histories of some music publishers (and several other music trade entities) is like reading the storyline for a daytime TV drama.  A lot of switching of partners, spiteful actions, petty disagreements, betrayal, love, lust.  Well, maybe less of the last two.

Boosey & Hawkes, for example, was formed in 1930, as a result of a merger of two established British music publishers.  Music publishers are like the middlemen between the artist and the adoring fans.  Composers sell the rights of their music to a publisher, who produces and sells the intellectual property (the sheet music).  This has a side effect of stirring up copyright issues.  As I've mentioned, copyright law is full of twists, turns, and traps (watch out!), that can all result in some fairly serious fines.  But let's not discuss law right now. 

Leslie Boosey and Ralph Hawkes were rival music company owners.  Rather than fight against one another, they decided to join forces.  Thus, Boosey & Hawkes.  To make a long, convoluted story short, the two men had different interests.  Boosey was interested in not just publishing, but in instrument manufacturing.  Hawkes thought instrument making was dull, and actually wanted to buy out the publishing side of the business and manage it from New York.  Ralph Hawkes died in 1950, however, and his portion of the company was taken over by his rather irresponsible brother, Geoffrey.  Geoffrey spent most of his money on mouth organs and ovens, both of which failed.  Geoffrey died of leukemia in 1961.

The surviving Boosey (ha ha, that sounds funny!) had support throughout these difficult years from his managing director, Ernst Roth.  Allegedly, the composer Benjamin Britten had a hand in tearing apart the two businessmen.  In the early 1960s, Roth forced Boosey's sons out of the company, and barred his youngest son from joining.  Boosey, to his credit, realized Britten's value and agreed to divide the company into two parts, publishing and instrument manufacture.  Unfortunately, Britten prevented Boosey from being chairperson of the music publishing board that was formed at Britten's request.  This was humiliating for Boosey.

Britten later got Boosey & Hawkes to hire Donald Mitchell to scout out new talent.  This made Roth angry, who felt that Britten had too much control over Boosey.  Roth fired Mitchell.  Mitchell later went to the Faber and Faber book publishing company and set up Faber Music, with the help of Britten.

Boosey & Hawkes claims to be the largest classical music publishing house world-wide.  Its catalog includes major 20-century composers, including Stravinsky, Copland, Bartok, Britten, Strauss, Prokofieff, and Rachmaninoff. 

And you thought a story about a publishing company would be boring.