Presser, Theodore

Presser, Theodore , American music publisher; b. Pittsburgh, July 3, 1848; d. Philadelphia, Oct. 27, 1925. He studied at the New England Cons. of Music in Boston with S. Emery, G.E. Whiting, J.C.D. Parker, and B. Lang, then at the Leipzig Cons. with Zwintscher and Jadassohn. In 1883 he founded in Philadelphia the Etude, a well-known music monthly of which he was ed. until 1907; James F. Cooke was its ed. from 1908 to 1949; it discontinued publication in 1957. Shortly after the foundation of the Etude, Presser established a publishing house, the Theodore Presser Co., for music and books about music, which has come to be one of the important firms in the U.S. It acquired the catalogues of the John Church Co. (1930), the Oliver Ditson Co. (1931), the Mercury Music Corp. (1969), Elkan-Vogel (1970), and the American Music Edition (1981). Its headquarters removed to Bryn Mawr, Pa., in 1949. In 1906 he founded the Presser Home for Retired Music Teachers, which in 1908 moved to Germantown. In 1916 he established the Presser Foundation to administer this Home, to provide relief for deserving musicians, and to offer scholarships in colleges and univs. in the U.S. Presser wrote instructive pieces and studies for piano. He was a co-founder of the Music Teachers National Assn. (1876).

Bibliography

C. Yoder, T. P., Educator, Publisher, Philanthropist: Selected Contributions to the Music Teaching Profession in America (diss., Univ. of Ill., 1978).

—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire