Music Publishing and Dissemination in the Early Nineteenth Century. Some Vignettes

Abstract

hen Robert Schumann wrote an elated letter to Clara Wieck, pleased that Kinderscenen had sold 300 copies in six months while two earlier works had reached totals of about 250 each, he left us a problem.1 Was his the reaction of a young composer believing himself to be gaining recognition or was this a good sale by usual standards? In 1839, the year of the letter, music publishing was generally thriving as we can tell from contemporary publishers' catalogues, reviews and, in some cases, the high prices publishers paid the more popular composers. What these sources do not tell us about is the sale of individual works, information that is difficult to find even when one concentrates on it. Most of the literature