Peters, Carl Friedrich

Peters, Carl Friedrich, German music publisher; b. Leipzig, March 30,1779; d. Sonnenstein, Bavaria, Nov. 20, 1827. In 1814 he purchased Kühnel & Hoffmeister’s Bureau de Musique (founded, 1800; Hoffmeister left the firm in 1805, and Kühnel led it from 1805 until his death in 1813). It became known as Bureau de Musique CF. Peters, but encountered difficulties as a result of the Battle of Leipzig and Peters’s committal to an asylum; nevertheless, it acquired a notable reputation through its publication of the first collected ed. of the works of J.S. Bach and of a number of works by Beethoven. In 1828 the manufacturer Carl Gotthelf Siegmund Böhme (1785–1855) took charge of the firm; after his death, the town council took it over as a charity foundation. In 1860 it was purchased by the Berlin book and music seller Julius Friedländer, who took the lawyer Max Abraham (1831–1900) into partnership in 1863; Abraham became sole owner in 1880 and proceeded to build an international reputation for the firm. In addition to publishing works by the foremost composers of the day, the firm launched the inexpensive and reliable Edition Peters in 1867, opened its large and valuable Musikbibliothek Peters to the public in 1893, and publ, the scholarly Jahrbuch der Musikbibliothek Peters from 1895 (it was the Deutsches Jahrbuch der Musikwissenschaft from 1956 to 1977; then the Jahrbuch Peters). Abraham’s nephew, Heinrich Hinrichsen (b. Hamburg, Feb. 5,1868; d. in the Auschwitz concentration camp, Sept. 30,1942), became a partner in 1894 and sole owner in 1900; his son Max Hinrichsen (b. Leipzig, July 6, 1901; d. London, Dec. 17,1965) joined the firm in 1927 and became a full partner in 1931; another son, Walter Hinrichsen (b. Leipzig, Sept. 23,1907; d. N.Y., July 21,1969), joined the firm in 1931, and a third son, Hans-Joachim Hinrichsen (b. Leipzig, Aug. 22, 1909; d. in the Perpignan concentration camp, Sept. 18,1940), joined it in 1933. Walter left the firm in 1936 and founded the C.F. Peters Corp. in N.Y. in 1948; Max left the firm in 1936, and in 1938 founded the Hinrichsen Edition in London, which became the Peters Edition in 1975; Heinrich and Hans-Joachim were deprived of their ownership by the Nazis in 1939, and Johannes Petschull took control of the firm. During and after World War II, the original Leipzig firm encountered great difficulties; the German Democratic Republic took it over in 1949–50. With the Hinrichsen heirs as partners, Petschull founded a new company in Frankfurt am Main in 1950. The Leipzig firm publishes much contemporary music while issuing rev. and updated eds. of earlier scores. The London firm has brought out much English music, while the N.Y firm has a deep commitment to modern music.

—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire