<<  -- 2 --  Malcolm Miller    FASCINATING FUSIONS

Irene Lawford-Hinrichsen highlighted how, though founded by two Catholics in 1800, Peters was owned from the middle of the 19th century by the Jewish publisher Max Abraham, and subsequently Henri Hinrichsen, whose great success as a music publisher in the first half of the 20th century led to his contributions of the first ever Women's College in Leipzig, and the Leipzig Musical Instruments Museum. Following the rise to power of the Nazi Party in 1933, he continued to sell his publications of music by Mendelssohn, Mahler and Schoenberg until 1938, when he was barred from entering his own premises. During Kristallnacht the Leipzig publishing house was looted and all the Mendelssohn sheet music was burned; the firm was Aryanized, and ironically continued publishing successfully in Germany. However, Henri and many members of his family were persecuted and perished in the Holocaust. Two of his sons survived, one founded Peters, New York and one founded Peters, London, his daughter being Irene Lawford-Hinrichsen. In 1991 she began to explore her family past and visited Leipzig, since when several monuments to her grandfather Henri's memory have appeared, including a street name and a commemorative plaque. A full account of the remarkable tale of Peters and her family is told in her book Music Publishing and Patronage: CF Peters: 1800 to the Holocaust (Edition Press, 2000), published for the Bicentenary of Peters Edition.

Continue >>