Musikhaus André: Huguenot music publisher helps Mozart achieve world fame
Offenbach is one of the Mozart cities. The musical genius visited the city in 1790 on the occasion of his stay for the Frankfurt imperial coronation. Above all, however, Mozart's sheet music from Offenbach went around the world. Mozart's posthumous fame is due to the Offenbach music publisher Johann André, a Huguenot foundation that made history.
In 1774, Johann André founded a music publishing house with an attached sheet music printing shop at Herrnstraße 54 in Offenbach. After a failed attempt to manage the "Notenfabrique" from Berlin, where he worked as music director of the Döbbelinisches Theater, Johann André returned to Offenbach in 1784 and moved the company to Domstraße in the same year. The publishing house and print shop are set up in the rear buildings. In 1797, the publishing catalog already lists 1052 numbers: Operas, arias, songs, concertos and symphonies. A workshop festival in October 1790 proves to be a historic day in the company's history: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart visits the André house.
Johann Anton André, son of the company founder, acquired the majority of the composer's music manuscripts from Mozart's widow Constanze in 1799.
There are more than 273 works, most of them unpublished. From 1800 to 1854, the Mozart estate remained undivided in the city. The fact that Johann Anton André brought the inventor of lithography, Alois Senefelder, to Offenbach at the same time contributed to the dissemination of the musical material.
The breakthrough of lithography
The Munich actor is the inventor of lithography. Johann Anton André induces him to come to Offenbach. From 1799 to 1801, Senefelder lived in Domstrasse and trained André's printers in the new technique. The sheet music no longer had to be engraved in copper, but could be reproduced using the faster lithographic printing process.
In 1800, the lithographic printing process is used commercially for the first time worldwide at André's publishing house. For over half a century, Offenbach publishes from Mozart's original scores.
A total of 79 compositions are published as first editions by André's publishing house, including the world-famous serenade "Eine kleine Nachtmusik". Both Otto Jahn, the first scholarly Mozart biographer, and Ludwig Ritter von Köchel, who compiled a catalog of the composer's works in the 19th century, took Johann Anton André's handwritten cataloging into account.
Johann August André takes over the business in 1840. More commercially than musically gifted, he consolidates the publishing house, which had come to a standstill, and leads it to new prosperity by publishing inexpensive new editions of works by classical masters.
Musikhaus André still in Offenbach today
In addition to his entrepreneurial activities, Johann August André was socially committed and, among other things, chairman of the General Health Insurance Fund, the General Association for the Poor, the Citizens' Association and the Bernardstift.
In 1854, Johann Anton André's heirs divide the Mozart estate into seven parts. In 1873, the Royal Library in Berlin acquired 138 of these manuscripts, with the remainder being sold at auctions in 1929 and 1932.
André's house in Domstraße is badly damaged during the Second World War. Bombs destroy the print shop in the rear building in 1943. Years later, a number of lithographic plates were recovered from the cellar. Today they can be found in the Haus der Stadtgeschichte.
The André music publishing house had already moved to Frankfurter Straße 28 in Offenbach in 1923, where the company is still based today. The traditional André music store is still well-known beyond the borders of Offenbach for its instruments, accessories, music electronics and sheet music.