The Sheet Music Trade

Lithography made scores cheap, and households could buy the tune they had just heard at the theatre.

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RomanticMusic PublisherCopyright

Lithography freed music from the engraver's plate, and for the first time a household could buy the tune it had just heard at the theatre.

Time and place

London, Leipzig, Paris, Milan and New York, from 1800 to 1900. Lithography was invented in 1796 and used for music in quantity from the 1820s; a plate could be reprinted, and a few notes changed made a new edition. Leipzig and London publishers built catalogues in series, Milanese houses worked around opera, and New York's music trade gathered in one street, with shops and rehearsal rooms below.

What happened

Publishers bought works outright or paid a royalty on sales, then issued vocal scores, piano reductions, dance arrangements and single sheet songs. When an opera succeeded, its arias appeared in several arrangements at once, suited to different levels of household skill. Houses numbered their series and printed the arranger and playing hints on the cover, selling through catalogues, shops and word of mouth. Before copyright treaties, pirated editions ran in the same city and competed for the same buyers. Scores were sold in music shops, department stores and mail-order catalogues, while demonstrators played and sang new songs in the shop until the tune stuck with a customer. International copyright treaties made scores protected property, and publishers began pursuing unauthorised reprints across borders.

What changed

Music became a commodity with a price and a shelf life. Most people met a symphony or an opera first through a piano reduction rather than an orchestra, and domestic playing was the playback of the day. The best-selling sheet and the demonstrator produced the idea of a hit, and the logic of the single record was already visible. Covers began to carry a singer's portrait and a theatre's name, with advertising and reviews manufacturing demand together. Publishers became gatekeepers, and composers began to organise for a share.

Listen for the turn

Begin with the piano transcription of Casta Diva, the aria pressed into two hands, its ornament simplified and its long breath cut into playable phrases. Then Maple Leaf Rag, the same syncopated strain returning, written to be played again and again. Finally Yankee Doodle Boy, verse and chorus, short enough to sing standing in a parlour. Before the turn this music belonged to theatre and band; afterwards it was reduced onto a domestic music stand. Notice what the arranger deletes, usually the introduction and the transitions first.

Related

The turn belongs to Romantic, with the industry at Music Publisher and Copyright, and the earlier technical start in Petrucci's movable type.

Sources

• Grove Music Online 的 Publishing of music 条目，用于核对十九世纪出版商与版税制度
• D. W. Krummel, Music Printing and Publishing（Macmillan），用于核对石版印刷与廉价谱的流通

Used for fact-checking only; all prose is original.