Boosey & Hawkes

Boosey & Hawkes Group plc

File:BooseyandHawkes-logo.jpg
Company type	Public limited company
Industry	Music
Founded	London (1930)
Headquarters	London , England, United Kingdom
Key people	Sir Robin Miller, Chairman; Roger Lewis, Deputy Chairman; John Minch, CEO; Edward Knighton, Group Finance Director
Products	Sheet music
Services	Provision of production music for television, radio and audio-visual use; commissioning and production of music for radio, television and advertising jingles; copyright administration
Owner	HgCapital
Divisions	BooseyMedia
Subsidiaries	Bote & Bock GmbH & Co. KG and Anton J. Benjamin GmbH (Germany); Boosey & Hawkes Music Publishers Ltd. (UK); Boosey & Hawkes, Inc. (USA)
Website	www.boosey.com

Boosey & Hawkes is a British music publisher, and is the largest classical music publisher in the world.

Formed in 1930 through the merger of two well-established British music businesses, the company owns the copyrights to much major 20th century music, including the complete catalogue of works by Bartók, Leonard Bernstein, Britten, Copland, Prokofiev, Rachmaninoff, Richard Strauss and Stravinsky. It also publishes many prominent contemporary composers, such as John Adams, Louis Andriessen, Sir Harrison Birtwistle, Elliott Carter, Peter Maxwell Davies, Henryk Górecki, Heinz Karl Gruber, Robin Holloway, Magnus Lindberg, James MacMillan, Olga Neuwirth, Michael Nyman, Steve Reich, Kurt Schwertsik and Mark-Anthony Turnage.

With companies in Germany, the UK and the US, the company also sells sheet music; provides ready-made production music for television, radio and audio-visual use; commissions and produces music for radio, television and advertising jingles; and administers copyrights owned by media companies.

History

The company was founded in 1930 through the merger of two respected music companies, Boosey & Company and Hawkes & Son. Boosey & Company traces its roots back to John Boosey's music lending library in London which he founded in 1765, and which diversified into manufacturing brass, wind and string musical instruments in 1850. It owned the rights to music by Bellini, Rossini and Verdi, as well as Elgar and Vaughan Williams. In 1892, Boosey & Company opened an office in New York which still exists today. The business eventually owned half of Regent Street, and at the time of the merger was owned by Leslie Boosey (1887–1979).

Hawkes & Son, a rival to Boosey & Company, was founded in 1865 by William Henry Hawkes selling orchestral sheet music. The company also made musical instruments and spare parts such as clarinet reeds, and by 1925 Hawkes had set up an instrument factory in Edgware, North London. The business was eventually inherited by Ralph Hawkes (died 1950). Leslie Boosey and Ralph Hawkes met in the 1920s when they were both on the Board of the Performing Right Society, and saw an opportunity to go into business together.

Russian composer Igor Stravinsky (1882–1971), one of the famous composers signed by Boosey & Hawkes.

The 1938 Anschluss – the annexation of Austria into Greater Germany by the Nazi regime – led to the Nazification of Viennese publishing house Universal Edition. Boosey & Hawkes seized the opportunity to sign up composers Béla Bartók and Zoltán Kodály, and also rescued Universal's Jewish staff, who later played an important role in developing the company. One such employee in particular, Ernst Roth, facilitated the signing of Richard Strauss and Igor Stravinsky, and was instrumental in the production of Strauss's Vier letzte Lieder (Four Last Songs) (1948; premièred 1950) and Stravinsky's The Rake's Progress (premièred 1951).

By the time World War II broke out in 1939, Boosey & Hawkes had also signed Aaron Copland and Benjamin Britten. It was Ralph Hawkes who championed Britten when he was still relatively unknown, often against the rest of the board of directors, until the première on 7 June 1945 of Peter Grimes, which was a critical and popular success. Sheet music sales soared during the War, enabling Boosey & Hawkes to buy Editions Russes which held the rights to the most valuable works of Prokofiev, Rachmaninoff and Stravinsky. The company also purchased the lease of the Royal Opera House in London, rescuing it from becoming a permanent dance hall and providing a venue for world-class ballet and opera in the capital.

An illustration of the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden, by Thomas H. Shepherd, published in 1827–1828. It became known as the Royal Opera House in 1892.

By 1950, Boosey & Hawkes was a leading international music company with an extensive catalogue of serious composers and offices in Bonn, Johannesburg, New York, Paris, Toronto and Sydney. However, from the late 1940s, strains had begun to appear in the relationship between Leslie Boosey and Ralph Hawkes, and this led to factions supporting each man forming in the company. It was discovered that Hawkes had borrowed capital of £100,000 during the War without the permission of the exchange control authorities, and Boosey was forced to clear up the situation at great personal cost. Hawkes secretly wanted to buy out the music publishing side of the business and manage it from New York, leaving Boosey in London with the musical instrument business which Hawkes found dull. However, he died suddenly in 1950, and representation of his faction was taken over by his flamboyant but unreliable brother Geoffrey who spent much of the company's money on ventures such as the manufacture of mouth organs and ovens which failed. Geoffrey Hawkes also sold shares in the company to fund his philandering, to the point that the company was forced to go public to raise cash. Leslie Boosey allowed Geoffrey his turn as chairman, but within two years the profitable company was on the brink of insolvency. Fortunately for the company, Geoffrey Hawkes died of leukaemia in 1961.

During these difficult years, Boosey was supported by his trusted managing director, Ernst Roth. However, Roth later regarded the Boosey family as ineffectual and parochial. In the early 1960s, Roth forced Boosey's sons Anthony and Simon out of the company, and prevented his youngest son, Nigel, from even joining, allegedly at the behest of Benjamin Britten. Roth and Boosey also had differences over Britten's influence over the company. Roth regarded Britten as a gifted local musician, rather than a true genius like Roth's friends Strauss and Stravinsky. Boosey realized how valuable Britten was to the company, and agreed to Britten's request to divide the company into instruments and publishing. However, Britten humiliated Boosey by preventing him from chairing the music publishing board Boosey had established at Britten's request. In 1963, Britten also managed to get Boosey & Hawkes to employ Donald Mitchell to find new, young composers for the company. Angered by the sway Britten had over Boosey, Roth fired Mitchell within a year. Mitchell later set up Faber Music for book publisher Faber and Faber with the assistance of Britten and the blessing of T S Eliot.

Boosey retired from the company in 1964, and died without an obituary in 1979. Although he had been awarded with the Légion d'honneur by France, his achievements were mostly unrecognized in the UK. However, a large number of composers and their estates continue to benefit from his pioneering work in rights and royalty collection. In addition, every two years the Royal Philharmonic Society and the Performing Right Society honour individuals who have made an outstanding contribution to the furtherance of contemporary music in Britain with the Leslie Boosey Award. The award is given to those who work "backstage", such as administrators, broadcasters, educationalists, programmers, publishers and representatives from the recording industry.

It took nearly 20 years for Boosey & Hawkes to regain the leading position in the international music scene that it has today. It is now the largest classical music publisher in the world.

The company today

In 2001, Boosey & Hawkes was put up for sale after accounting irregularities were discovered in its Chicago instrument-distribution business, leading to £13m worth of sales being written off, a plummeting share price, and the company's near-bankruptcy. It was eventually bought by venture capitalists HgCapital in 2003 for £40 million.

On 11 February 2003, Boosey & Hawkes sold its musical instrument division, which included clarinet maker Buffet Crampon and guitar manufacturer Höfner, to The Music Group, a company formed by rescue buyout specialists Rutland Fund Management, for £33.2 million. An archive of musical instruments manufactured or collected by the company throughout its history was passed to the Horniman Museum in Forest Hill, South London.

Leonard Bernstein (1918–1990), photographed on 1 September 1971, whose works were published by Boosey & Hawkes.

In September 2005 the company was again offered for sale by HgCapital which announced that it was seeking between £60 and £80 million. One of the interested buyers was Elevation Partners, a private equity firm which counts U2 lead singer Bono as a partner and managing director. Despite several offers of about £115 million from a number of parties, the sale was later cancelled in November 2005.

Today, partly due to the foresight or business acumen of Ralph Hawkes, the company owns the copyrights to much major 20th century music, including the complete catalogue of works by Bartók, Leonard Bernstein, Britten, Copland, Prokofiev, Rachmaninoff, Richard Strauss and Stravinsky. It also publishes many prominent contemporary composers, such as John Adams, Louis Andriessen, Sir Harrison Birtwistle, Elliott Carter, Peter Maxwell Davies, Henryk Górecki, Heinz Karl Gruber, Robin Holloway, Magnus Lindberg, James MacMillan, Olga Neuwirth, Michael Nyman, Steve Reich, Kurt Schwertsik and Mark-Anthony Turnage.

Boosey & Hawkes Music Shop has had a shop at 295 Regent Street in London since the 1930s. It has the UK's largest selection of printed music from all publishers, and operates a worldwide mail order service.

The company also has a major division, BooseyMedia, that commissions and produces music for radio, television and advertising jingles, and the administration of copyrights owned by media companies. Its Cavendish Production Music Library provides ready-made production music for television, radio and audio-visual use.

The Boosey & Hawkes group has companies in Germany (Bote & Bock GmbH & Co. KG and Anton J. Benjamin GmbH), the UK (Boosey & Hawkes Music Publishers Ltd.) and the USA (Boosey & Hawkes, Inc.). In North America, Boosey & Hawkes' catalogue is distributed by the Hal Leonard Corporation.

Parodies

The company was lampooned by The Goon Show as "Goosy and Borks" in their most famous episode, "Lurgy Strikes Britain", as well as by musical parodist Peter Schickele who named one of of the friends of fictional composer P.D.Q. Bach Jonathan "Boozey" Hawkes. Somewhat more recondite was the punning reference delivered in one of Gerard Hoffnung's parody concerts: "If Boosey's will Hawk it, Schott's will Tippett".

References

• Official website of Boosey & Hawkes.
• Jagger, Suzy (2003-03-20). "Instrumental Role in Music-Making". The Times. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
• Wallace, Helen (2007-04-26). "Musical Marriage that Soared – and Soured". The Telegraph (Review). {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)

Further reading

Articles

• "Boosey & Hawkes Settle with Disney". The Daily Telegraph. 2001-03-21. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
• Aldrick, Philip (2001-05-01). "Boosey in Talks with Lenders after Account Irregularities". The Daily Telegraph. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
• Fagan, Mary (2001-10-06). "Boosey & Hawkes Faces £50m Bid". The Daily Telegraph. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
• Aldrick, Philip (2002-02-12). "Steinway Quits Boosey Auction". The Daily Telegraph. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
• Parkinson, Gary (2002-02-25). "Equity Groups Make a Play for Boosey". The Daily Telegraph. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
• Osborne, Alistair (2002-04-30). "Boosey & Hawkes in Sale Talks". The Daily Telegraph. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
• Jay, Adam (2003-05-27). "Boosey Stands Firm on EMI Deal". The Daily Telegraph. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
• Jay, Adam (2003-09-09). "Final Notes Sound in Boosey Sale Opera". The Daily Telegraph. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
• Jay, Adam (2003-09-10). "Fresh Bidder Chimes In on Boosey Sale". The Daily Telegraph. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
• Lawson, Annie (2003-09-10). "Boosey Trumpets £40m Buyout". The Guardian. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
• Osborne, Alistair (2003-09-17). "Boosey Prepared for Trio of Suitors". The Daily Telegraph. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
• Osborne, Alistair (2003-10-04). "Hg Offer Tops Boosey Buyout". The Daily Telegraph. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
• Milmo, Dan (2004-11-23). "La Donna e mobile? Key in a Classic Ringtone". The Guardian. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
• Hopkins, Nic (2005-09-20). "Clamour of Interest in £130m Sale of Boosey". The Times. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)

Books

• Wallace, Helen (2007). Boosey & Hawkes : The Publishing Story. London: Boosey & Hawkes Music Publishers Ltd. ISBN 0851625142 (pbk.). {{cite book}}: Check |isbn= value: invalid character (help)

External link

• Official website of Boosey & Hawkes