Hofmeister, Friedrich (EN)

Hofmeister Friedrich, *24 January 1782 Strehla, †30 September 1864 Reudnitz (near Leipzig), German music publisher and bibliographer. From 1797 he was an apprentice at the Breitkopf & Härtel publishing house in Leipzig; from 1801 he worked there as an assistant at the Bureau de Musique run by F.A. Hoffmeister and A. Kühnel. After a brief absence from Leipzig, from mid-1806 he resumed his collaboration with Kühnel, including work on compiling a publishing catalogue. In 1807 he opened a music shop in Leipzig, which he soon expanded into a music publishing firm, whilst also running a consignment shop and a rental service. His friendship with the botanist and zoologist H.G.L. Reichenbach directed Hofmeister’s interests towards natural history; he established a botanical garden at his estate in Reudnitz, whilst his home (Patriarchenzelt) became a meeting place for a circle of artists and historians. He was a close friend and principal publisher of H. Marschner, and published works by Beethoven, Liszt, Mendelssohn, Berlioz, Loewe, and, among Polish composers, Chopin, Nowakowski, K. Kątski, Lipiński, H. Wieniawski and others. He also published method books and self-teaching guides for various instruments. In 1829, on Hofmeister’s initiative, several music publishers formed an association whose aim was to fight for the protection of publishing rights and to prosecute illegal reprints. This soon evolved into the Verein der Deutschen Musikalienhändler, and Hofmeister, as secretary of the association, made a significant contribution to the defence of his profession’s interests. In 1852, he handed the business over to his sons, the elder of whom, Adolf Moritz (1802–1870), took charge of the music publishing. Between 1877 and 1905, the publishing house was managed by the then co-owner Albert Röthing (1845–1907), and subsequently by Hofmeister’s great-great-grandson, Carl Wilhelm Günther (1878–1956), who moved the company to Frankfurt am Main in 1950. The publishing house is currently based in Hofheim, and has been owned by Karlheinz Schwarze since 1964. In Leipzig in 1952, a state-run music publishing house (F.H. Musikverlag) was established, continuing the tradition of the former firm.

Hofmeister’s name is inextricably linked with musical bibliography. When C.F. Whistling published Handbuch der musikalischen Literatur in 1817, Hofmeister offered to publish supplements through his firm, and from 1830 onwards he himself became involved in compiling monthly lists of musical publications in the German-speaking world. From that moment on, his firm became the centre for the compilation of a German musical bibliography. Over the course of more than a century, the following individuals also contributed to the compilation of the bibliography: A.M. Hofmeister, F. and A. Whistling, C. Röthing, F. Jost, G. Kaiser, F. Losch and W. Lott. The bibliography was published in three series: I — Handbuch der musikalischen Literatur, with supplements, initiated by Whistling and continued until 1943, comprising initially annual and subsequently multi-year compilations of musical literature; II — Musikalisch-literarische Monatsbericht, a series initiated in 1829 by Whistling, edited by Hofmeister from July 1830, by A.M. Hofmeister from 1834, and continued until 1942; it comprises 114 volumes of monthly summaries of newly published musical literature (continued from 1943 by the Deutsche Bücherei in Leipzig as the Deutsche Musikbibliographie); III — Verzeichnis (1929–42 as Jahresverzeichnis), a series published between 1852 and 1942, comprising annual compilations of the material contained in the Monatsberichte (continued from 1943 by the Deutsche Bücherei as the Jahresverzeichnis der deutschen Musikalien und Musikschriften). Hofmeister also planned to compile thematic catalogues of instrumental music by the most famous contemporary composers as a supplement to the Handbuch der musikalischen Literatur; in 1819, only the first volume, concerning L. van Beethoven, was published. In 1856 and 1869, the firm’s publication catalogues were issued. At the headquarters in Hofheim, bibliographical traditions are upheld by the Bibliographie des Musikschrifttums, compiled until 1959 by W. Schmieder and subsequently by the Staatliches Institut für Musikforschung Preussischer Kulturbesitz. Hofmeister’s work remains to this day an inexhaustible source for research into musical culture, and particularly the reception of music in the 19th and early 20th centuries.

Literature: Tradition und Gegenwart, commemorative volume marking the 150th anniversary of Friedrich Hofmeister’s publishing house, Leipzig 1957; R. Elvers, C. Hopkinson A Survey of the Music Catalogues of Whistling and Hofmeister, Fontes Artis Musicae XIX, 1972.