The Éditions Alphonse Leduc company is a prominent French music publishing house specializing in classical music

Classical music

Classical music is the art music produced in, or rooted in, the traditions of Western liturgical and secular music, encompassing a broad period from roughly the 11th century to present times...

. It was created in Paris in 1841.

History

Éditions Alphonse Leduc is a family business that has been passed down from father to son over five generations. The family is originally from Arnay-le-Duc

Arnay-le-Duc

Arnay-le-Duc is a commune of the Côte-d'Or department in Bourgogne in eastern France.-History:Arnay-le-Duc was the location of the worship of the Celtic god Abilus, who was associated with the goddess Damona.-Population:-Personalities:...

, in the Burgundy region of France.

The family musical origins began in Arnay-le-Duc in Burgundy and its first musician, Antoine Girard. Girard was a violinist who left his father's weaving shop to turn his attention to art. His son Charles Girard, who was born in Arnay-le-Duc in 1754, moved to Nantes

Nantes

Nantes is a city in western France, located on the Loire River, from the Atlantic coast. The city is the 6th largest in France, while its metropolitan area ranks 8th with over 800,000 inhabitants....

 and was the first full-time musician. The Girards were a large family and its Nantes branch added Leduc to its name, taken from its place of origin Arnay-le-Duc. From then on all of the Girards of this branch were known as Girard-Leduc, and often, for the sake of simplification in business, just Leduc.

Alphonse Leduc

Alphonse Leduc, teacher, composer, student and flute

Flute

The flute is a musical instrument of the woodwind family. Unlike woodwind instruments with reeds, a flute is an aerophone or reedless wind instrument that produces its sound from the flow of air across an opening...

, guitar and bassoon

Bassoon

The bassoon is a woodwind instrument in the double reed family that typically plays music written in the bass and tenor registers, and occasionally higher. Appearing in its modern form in the 19th century, the bassoon figures prominently in orchestral, concert band and chamber music literature...

 virtuoso

Virtuoso

A virtuoso is an individual who possesses outstanding technical ability in the fine arts, at singing or playing a musical instrument. The plural form is either virtuosi or the Anglicisation, virtuosos, and the feminine form sometimes used is virtuosa...

 of Anton Reicha

Anton Reicha

Anton Reicha was a Czech-born, later naturalized French composer. A contemporary and lifelong friend of Beethoven, Reicha is now best remembered for his substantial early contribution to the wind quintet literature and his role as a teacher – his pupils included Franz Liszt and Hector Berlioz...

 in Paris, was born in Nantes in 1804 and died in Paris in 1868. He transferred his publishing house from Nantes to Paris in 1841. His son, Alphonse-Charles Leduc (Paris 1844-1892), created the important instrumental teaching collections which became the company's speciality and have been constantly expanded ever since. Alphonse-Charles's son, Alphonse Émile Leduc (1878–1951), continued the teaching collections, developed the company's school edtitions and published several important symphonic composers. His sons, Claude-Alphonse (1910–1995) and Gilbert Leduc (1911–1985), who entered the business in 1928, managed and further expanded Éditions A. Leduc from 1951 to 1985.

Absorbed companies

Éditions Alphonse Leduc have absorbed a number of publishing companies during their existence, in recent years B.G., Bornemann, C.Y., Gras, Hamelle, Heugel, Hortensia, King, Notissimo and Ouvrières . They are exclusive agents in France for: Anton J. Benjamin (hire), Carl Fischer Music

Carl Fischer Music

Carl Fischer Music is a major publisher of sheet music based in New York City that has been in business since 1872. As one of the few remaining family-owned music publishers, it supplies educational materials to professional and beginning musicians of all ages, as well as new music works.Notable...

 (hire), Dilia (hire), Joaquín Rodrigo (sales), E.P.T.C. (Editions & Productions Théatrales Chappell) (hire), F.M.T. (hire), Hug, Foetisch, Pelikan (sales), Lido Mélodies (sales), Marine Handler (hire), M.E.L. (Musique en ligne) (hire), Mercury (hire), Misterioso (sales), Moeck (hire), Pan Educational Music (sales), P.W.M. (hire), Schott Musik International

Schott Music

Schott Music is one of the oldest German music publishers. It is also one of the largest music publishing houses in Europe and is currently the second oldest music publishing house. The company headquarters of Schott Music was founded by Bernhard Schott in Mainz, Germany in 1770.Established in...

 (hire), Schirmer

Schirmer

Schirmer is a German surname of:* Johann Wilhelm Schirmer , German painter* Friedrich Wilhelm Schirmer , German painter* Heinrich Ernst Schirmer , Norwegian-German architect...

, A.M.P. (sales), Sikorski (sales), Sonzogno (hire), Southern Music Co. (sales and hire), Suvini-Zerboni (Sugar Music) (hire), Theodore Presser (sales and hire), Touch of Brass (sales), U.M.P. (sales and hire), Virgo (sales), Warner Chappell Music France (hire), Zen-On

Zen-On Music Company Ltd

is a music publishing company based in Shinjuku, Tokyo, in Japan. Zen-On publishes sheet music for sale and rental, including orchestral scores, band and wind ensemble music, solo works and contemporary works, such as Frederic Rzewski's "People United ..." The company was founded in 1931.Zen-On are...

 (sales and hire).

They are non-exclusive in France for P.W.M. (sales) and Suvini-Zerboni (sales) and non-exclusive worldwide for U.M.P. (sales)(except U.K. and U.S.A.).

Through Diffusion BIM, Alphonse Leduc also distributes internationally the brass music of all publishers worldwide.

Alphonse Leduc and its subsidiary company Heugel have taken control of the well-known American music publishing and distribution company King Music, thus becoming a group of international scope.

Heugel

The history of the publishing house HEUGEL dates back to 1839 when Jacques Léopold Heugel became the associate of the music publisher Jean Antoine Meisonier. They acquired a periodical, Le Ménestrel, which have been founded in 1833 and was issued until 1940. Their association ended in 1842 when Heugel took over sole control. Léopold Heugel was succeeded on his death in 1833 by his son Henri, since when the company remained in the family until it was bought by Leduc in 1980.

The Heugel catalogue includes all musical genres, both French and international, in particular opera

Opera

Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...

 and operetta

Operetta

Operetta is a genre of light opera, light in terms both of music and subject matter. It is also closely related, in English-language works, to forms of musical theatre.-Origins:...

 (Jules Massenet

Jules Massenet

Jules Émile Frédéric Massenet was a French composer best known for his operas. His compositions were very popular in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and he ranks as one of the greatest melodists of his era. Soon after his death, Massenet's style went out of fashion, and many of his operas...

, Ambroise Thomas

Ambroise Thomas

Charles Louis Ambroise Thomas was a French composer, best known for his operas Mignon and Hamlet and as Director of the Conservatoire de Paris from 1871 till his death.-Biography:"There is good music, there is bad music, and then there is Ambroise Thomas."- Emmanuel Chabrier-Early life...

, Marc-Antoine Charpentier

Marc-Antoine Charpentier

Marc-Antoine Charpentier, , was a French composer of the Baroque era.Exceptionally prolific and versatile, he produced compositions of the highest quality in several genres...

, Édouard Lalo

Édouard Lalo

Édouard-Victoire-Antoine Lalo was a French composer.-Biography:Lalo was born in Lille , in northernmost France. He attended that city's music conservatory in his youth. Then, beginning at age 16, Lalo studied at the Paris Conservatoire under Berlioz's old enemy François Antoine Habeneck...

, Léo Delibes

Léo Delibes

Clément Philibert Léo Delibes was a French composer of ballets, operas, and other works for the stage...

, Jacques Offenbach

Jacques Offenbach

Jacques Offenbach was a Prussian-born French composer, cellist and impresario. He is remembered for his nearly 100 operettas of the 1850s–1870s and his uncompleted opera The Tales of Hoffmann. He was a powerful influence on later composers of the operetta genre, particularly Johann Strauss, Jr....

, etc.). Since 1920 Heugel has published much modern music, including that of Reynaldo Hahn

Reynaldo Hahn

Reynaldo Hahn was a Venezuelan, naturalised French, composer, conductor, music critic and diarist. Best known as a composer of songs, he wrote in the French classical tradition of the mélodie....

, Joseph Canteloube

Joseph Canteloube

Marie-Joseph Canteloube de Malaret was a French composer, musicologist, and author best known for his collections of orchestrated folksongs from the Auvergne region.-Biography:...

, Francis Poulenc

Francis Poulenc

Francis Jean Marcel Poulenc was a French composer and a member of the French group Les six. He composed solo piano music, chamber music, oratorio, choral music, opera, ballet music, and orchestral music...

, Darius Milhaud

Darius Milhaud

Darius Milhaud was a French composer and teacher. He was a member of Les Six—also known as The Group of Six—and one of the most prolific composers of the 20th century. His compositions are influenced by jazz and make use of polytonality...

, André Jolivet

André Jolivet

André Jolivet was a French composer. Known for his devotion to French culture and musical thought, Jolivet's music draws on his interest in acoustics and atonality as well as both ancient and modern influences in music, particularly on instruments used in ancient times...

, and, closer to us, Pierre Boulez

Pierre Boulez

Pierre Boulez is a French composer of contemporary classical music, a pianist, and a conductor.-Early years:Boulez was born in Montbrison, Loire, France. As a child he began piano lessons and demonstrated aptitude in both music and mathematics...

, Henri Dutilleux

Henri Dutilleux

Henri Dutilleux is one of the most important French composers of the second half of the 20th century, producing work in the tradition of Maurice Ravel, Claude Debussy, and Albert Roussel, but in a style distinctly his own...

, Betsy Jolas

Betsy Jolas

Betsy Jolas is a French composer.Betsy Jolas was born in Paris. Resident in the United States from 1940 until 1946, she studied composition with Paul Boepple and piano with Helen Schnabel. On her return to France she continued her studies with Simone Plé-Caussade, Darius Milhaud and Olivier...

, Gilbert Amy

Gilbert Amy

Gilbert Amy is a French composer and conductor. In 1954 he entered the Conservatoire de Paris where he was taught and influenced by Olivier Messiaen and Darius Milhaud and studied piano with Yvonne Loriod and fugue with Simone Plé-Caussade. His first compositions date from 1955...

. Le Pupitre, a collection of early music was started in 1967, whose critical editions are highly respected by musicologists all over the world.

Hamelle

HAMELLE was founded in 1877 by Julien Hamelle who had taken over the catalogue of Maho, a company founded in 1851. Julien Hamelle directed the firm until his death in 1917, when he was succeeded by his son Georges-Edgard. The catalogue, acquired and now distributed by Éditions Leduc, includes an important collection of piano music. Hamelle also published works of Édouard Lalo, Vincent d'Indy

Vincent d'Indy

Vincent d'Indy was a French composer and teacher.-Life:Paul Marie Théodore Vincent d'Indy was born in Paris into an aristocratic family of royalist and Catholic persuasion. He had piano lessons from an early age from his paternal grandmother, who passed him on to Antoine François Marmontel and...

, Gabriel Pierné

Gabriel Pierné

Henri Constant Gabriel Pierné was a French composer, conductor, and organist.-Biography:Gabriel Pierné was born in Metz in 1863. His family moved to Paris to escape the Franco-Prussian War. He studied at the Paris Conservatoire, gaining first prizes for solfège, piano, organ, counterpoint and fugue...

, Camille Saint-Saëns

Camille Saint-Saëns

Charles-Camille Saint-Saëns was a French Late-Romantic composer, organist, conductor, and pianist. He is known especially for The Carnival of the Animals, Danse macabre, Samson and Delilah, Piano Concerto No. 2, Cello Concerto No. 1, Havanaise, Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso, and his Symphony...

, Charles-Marie Widor

Charles-Marie Widor

Charles-Marie Jean Albert Widor was a French organist, composer and teacher.-Life:Widor was born in Lyon, to a family of organ builders, and initially studied music there with his father, François-Charles Widor, titular organist of Saint-François-de-Sales from 1838 to 1889...

, and in particular, those of Gabriel Fauré

Gabriel Fauré

Gabriel Urbain Fauré was a French composer, organist, pianist and teacher. He was one of the foremost French composers of his generation, and his musical style influenced many 20th century composers...

 (Requiem, Élégie, Pavane, as well as the famous Mélodies etc.)

Present day

The fifth generation is represented by François Leduc (Claude's son) and Basile Crichton (the nephew of Claude and Gilbert Leduc), who have been the managers of the company since 1985, assisted by their respective brothers, Jean Leduc et Michel Crichton.

The Alphonse Leduc catalogue includes many musical composers past and present in particular the noted French flautist and pedagogue Louis Moyse

Louis Moyse

Louis Moyse was a famous French flute player and composer. He was the son of influential French flutist Marcel Moyse. He was a co-founder of the Vermont Marlboro Music Festival and was a teacher to top flutists all over the world. He died of heart failure at age 94.Louis Moyse was born in...

.

External links

• Alphonse Leduc English site