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75 Years G. Henle Publishers

» Anniversary Edition

» Gift Articles

» Henle History

» Birthday Wishes

» Gala Concert

» Henle Open Day 

2023: 75 Years of “Finest Urtext Editions”

In October 1948, a difficult period, the music-loving industrialist Günter Henle founded his music publishing house. His passion was “Urtext”: correct, unadulterated and beautiful editions of great works of classical music. Today we can look back on a great success story: 75 years of “Finest Urtext Editions”. Thus throughout 2023 we will be celebrating Urtext and our special anniversary. The highlight will be a large gala concert with numerous internationally renowned artists in Munich’s Prinzregententheater at the beginning of November. Come and celebrate with us!

Anniversary Edition

From Bach to Gershwin · All-time favourites
Piano Album From Bach to Gershwin · All-time favourites
Urtext Edition, paperbound (mws_henletheme.edition.Sammelband)
HN 1750

€7.50 available
Details

€7.50 available
Details
Further editions of this title
Digital

Digital

The HENLE ALBUM: “From Bach to Gershwin”

Our special anniversary edition is a particular treat for all pianists: it contains the best-known, most frequently played piano pieces from the Henle programme. Allow yourself to be tempted to sit down at the piano with Bach’s C major Invention, Mozart’s D minor Fantasy, Beethoven’s Elise or Satie’s first Gymnopedie – to name just four of the 17 titles of easy to medium difficulty. There are also wonderful pieces by Schönberg, Bartók and Gershwin. Arranged chronologically, this very reasonably priced edition (EUR 7.50, 44 pages) gives you an opportunity to explore the history of piano music from Bach to Gershwin.

 

Why not get it now?

Gift Articles

White porcelain
Henle mug White porcelain
gift article
HN 8034

€27.90 available
Details

€27.90 available
Details
Lined inner pages with a light blue cover
Henle Notebook Lined inner pages with a light blue cover
hardcover
HN 8049

€12.90 available
Details

€12.90 available
Details

Discover many more attractive gift articles!

Henle History

75 YEARS AGO, not only an idea was born, but its outstanding realisation: On 20 October 1948 the diplomat, politician and industrial magnate Günter Henle (1899–1979) founded his “publishing house for Urtext editions” in Munich. An accomplished pianist himself, he had noticed that there were hardly any editions that accurately reproduced the composer's musical text. It was an important concern for him to change this! 

75 Jahre G. Henle Verlag
Books & Periodicals 75 Jahre G. Henle Verlag
Editor: Tobias Heyl
hardcover
HN 2675

€28.00 available
Details

€28.00 available
Details

Browse through the milestones of the company's history of 75 years and see how G. Henle Publishers developed from the very first steps in 1948 to one of the world's leading publishing houses for classical sheet music.

  • 20 October 1948

    G. Henle Publishers is founded. Dr Günter Henle receives his licence by the then American military government for Bavaria, "to publish music & musicological works".

  • 1948–1950

    Mail delivery at the publishing house at Prinzregentenplatz 14 in Munich, Germany. 

  • 1948–1950

    Everyday work at the publishing house at Prinzregentenplatz 14 in Munich, Germany. 

  • 1949

    The very first Urtext editions are being published: Mozart's Piano Sonatas in two volumes (HN 1 and 2) and Schubert's "Impromptus" and "Moments Musicaux" (HN 4).

  • 1950s

    Artist friends of Günter Henle – such as pianist Rudolf Serkin – pay tribute to him and his publishing work. Until today, friendship and close collaborations with renowned musicians are maintained and highly appreciated by G. Henle Publishers.

  • 1954

    Founding of the editorial department under the management of pianist and musicologist Dr Ewald Zimmermann. This photo from 1973 shows (from left to right) Martin Bente, Dr Günter Henle, Dr Ewald Zimmermann and Ernst Herttrich.

  • 1955

    Moving of the Munich offices from Prinzregentenplatz to Schongauer Straße 24 in the south-west of the city.

  • 1957

    The first facsimile edition appears: the autograph of Joseph Haydn's "Creation Mass" (today only available antiquarian). Click on this text to see all facsimiles available today!

  • 1958

    The first Volume of the Haydn Complete Edition is published, in collaboration with the Joseph Haydn Institut in Cologne, Germany.

  • 1961

    The first Volume of the Beethoven Complete Edition is published, in collaboration with the Beethoven Haus Bonn, Germany.

  • 1968

    The publishing house's source archive contains more than 70,000 photocopies of autographs, first editions and early manuscript copies. By 2023, the collection will include 40,000 complete reproductions of sources.

  • 1969

    Dr Martin Bente is appointed Head of Production. He is commercial director from 1972 and General Manager of G. Henle Publishers from 1979 to 2000.

  • 1972

    Dr Günter Henle establishes the Günter Henle Foundation with its headquarters in Munich. The foundation assumes ownership of G. Henle Publishers on his death. Since 2016, Felix Henle, the grandson of the founder has been chairman of the foundation's board of directors.

  • 1978

    Acquisition of the offices in Forstenrieder Allee in Munich, still home to the publishing house today. The photo shows the building in its current state.

  • 1984

    The Thematic-Bibliographical Catalogue of Works by Johannes Brahms is published by Margit McCorkle (in this picture together with Henle's editor Ernst Herttrich).

  • 1990

    Dr Wolf-Dieter Seiffert becomes an editor, two years later editor-in-chief. Since 2000, he has been General Manager of the publishing house.

  • 1996

    Ludwig van Beethoven's correspondence is published in seven volumes (available in German language only).

  • 1999

    G. Henle Publishers enters the digital world: traditional music engraving in lead plate is replaced by ...

  • 2000

    ... digital music notation!

  • 2000

    The company's logo and text layout are carefully modernised.

  • 2014

    Completely revised new edition of the Thematic-Bibliographical Catalogue of Beethoven's Works by Dorfmüller/Gertsch/Ronge. (First edition by Kinsky-Halm 1955)

  • 2016

    Launch of the Henle Library app for professional musicians, amateurs, students and teachers. The numerous fully digital possibilities of Henle sheet music extend far beyond those of printed music or a PDF. In October 2023, about 75,000 musicians around the world use the Henle Library app.

  • 2019

    Launch of the Henle webshop and step-by-step expansion of the social media and online presence over the following years: YouTube (2007), Henle newsletter (2008), Facebook (2010), Weibo (2012), Instagram (2018), WeChat (2021), Xiaohongshu (2022), LinkedIn (2023)

  • 2019

    The first volume of the revised Urtext editions of Beethoven's Piano Sonatas is published ("Perahia Edition" by Murray Perahia and Dr Norbert Gertsch). Single editions and two further volumes are published during the following years.

  • 2019

    Donation of the entire Henle Urtext sheet music catalogue, comprising 1,250 music books to the Barenboim-Said Akademie, Berlin (in the photo: Felix Henle together with Daniel Barenboim). Learn more about the wide range of corporate responsibility activities by the publishing house and the Günter Henle Foundation by clicking on this text.

  • 2020

    Haydn's 55 Piano Sonatas are published in a revised, three-volume Urtext edition with fingerings by 55 renowned pianists.

  • 2022

    Originally scheduled for the Beethoven year 2020, a first public masterclass by G. Henle Publishers was held at Schloss Fürstenried in Munich, with Maestro Murray Perahia and ten young promising pianists from all over the world.

  • 2023

    The video tutorial platform Henle Masterclass is launched, with which the publishing house is undertaking a further step – also into the digital – future.

  • 2023

    After 75 years, G. Henle Publishers is the global market leader in this segment with around 1,500 published Urtext editions. The export business accounts for around 70% with the most important markets being the USA, South Korea, Japan, China and France.

Birthday Wishes

Frank Peter Zimmermann has a longstanding and close relationship with G. Henle Publishers. In the video, he is one of the first to congratulate us on our 75th anniversary! Listen to his thoughts on Urtext, fingerings and bowings, his favourite works and his very close ties to the Henle family:

Our close friendship with numerous outstanding musicians around the world is especially close to our hearts. So on our 75th anniversary, we are delighted to have received so many birthday wishes in writing and in the form of pictures and videos! Over the course of the year, this gallery will continue to fill up, so it's definitely worth dropping by every so often. We hope you enjoy looking at it!

                                              

Gala Concert

Truly the highlight of an exciting anniversary year: the glorious gala concert to mark G. Henle Publishers' 75th birthday on November 3, 2023 at Munich's Prinzregententheater! We are still overwhelmed by the brilliant performances of the world-class artists Grigory Sokolov, Frank Peter Zimmermann, Martin Helmchen, Nils Mönkemeyer, Claire Huangci, Tianwa Yang, Julian Steckel and William Youn – with accompaniment of the amazing Munich Chamber Orchestra under the direction of the great Christoph Poppen. All artists performed for no fee. All ticket proceeds from the benefit concert will go to the Kulturkreis der deutschen Wirtschaft im BDI e. V. and the Deutsche Stiftung Musikleben.

Our heartfelt thanks to all the artists, to our partner MünchenMusik and to a wonderful audience!

Photos: Astrid Ackermann

Henle Open Day

Do you miss meeting and mingling as much as we do?


It goes without saying that, at G. Henle Verlag, our first and foremost endeavor is to carry on the mission of the founder, Günter Henle, to make classical music available to all the music lovers in the world, in the highest possible quality.


Increasingly in the past years we have actively reached out to professional musicians and to our customers. Why so? Because, by talking and listening to what you have to say, we can steadily improve our products.

 

By becoming more and more active on social media, facebook and Instagram especially, we are in touch with our customers. That way we know what they like about Henle Urtext and what is important to them. Finally, we talk to our music dealers daily. We want to support their sales and find out from them what is moving the market.


We used to look forward with eager excitement to music fairs in Frankfurt and Shanghai, and also smaller conferences in other locations. Now that some are not taking place at all or being postponed, we decided to celebrate the 75th anniversary of G. Henle Verlag with a virtual Open Day that gives us – and you – the opportunity to get together.

 

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