The Music Sales Group, one of the world’s largest independent music publishers, is pleased to announce that it has bought the prestigious French music publishing house Éditions Alphonse Leduc.
In acquiring the 172-year-old Parisian publishing house Music Sales adds many substantial and wide-ranging works to its existing publishing portfolio. Founded in 1842 Éditions Alphonse Leduc became a family business that started by specialising in piano tutors then expanded to acquire operatic works by Rossini, Bellini, Weber and Meyerbeer, as well as pieces by Clémenti, Hummel, Weber and Onslow and a famous piano tutor by Viguerie.
Later the acquisition of Éditions Hamelle added works by Brahms, Fauré, Lalo, Dvořák, Saint-Saëns, Mussorgsky and Tchaikovsky. When Éditions Heugel was absorbed in the 1990s it brought with it Rossini’s The Barber of Seville and Delibes’ Coppélia. Perhaps Éditions Alphonse Leduc’s biggest acquisition was the Hartmann catalogue which features works by Massenet, Franck, Lalo and Reyer.
Still a vibrant house under the fifth generation of the Leduc family, more recent publishing acquisitions have included works by Olivier Messiaen, Francis Poulenc, Jacques Ibert, Henri Dutilleux and Joseph Canteloube. A flourishing range of instrumental tutors, notably those for flute by Marcel Moyse and Philippe Gaubert, reinforced Leduc’s traditional strength in the educational print publishing sector.
Music Sales CEO Robert Wise says, ‘It is a source of great satisfaction for us to acquire such a prestigious and long-established publishing house as Éditions Alphonse Leduc. Its catalogue very well complements those we already own and, as the MD of an independent family company myself; I am particularly pleased to add what has been such a well-respected French family concern to our range of publishing houses’.
For further details contact Kate Johnson, Creative Manager | kate.johnson@musicsales.co.uk | +44 (0)207 612 7445 | @msclassical