The compositional and biographical surroundings of Richard Wagner (1813-1883) and Franz Liszt (1811-1886) as reflected in the Schott publishers’ archive

• Applicant: Dr. Dorothea Sommer
• Subject Area: Musicology ; Communication Sciences ; Theatre and Media Studies
• Term: since 2026
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 577210589

In November 2014 the historical music publishers’ archive of B. Schott’s Söhne, Mainz had been sold to a consortium including the State Libraries in Munich and Berlin, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek München and Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin – Preußischer Kulturbesitz, and six music research institutions. The archive comprises the business archive (mass correspondences and business books), music manuscripts and sheet music of more than 40.000 printed Schott editions as well as three smaller partial archives. In the middle of the 19th century, the leader of the Schott company, Franz Schott, decided to focus his interests on the publishing of musical works by Richard Wagner (1813-1883) and Franz Liszt (1811-1886). This decision provoked an enormous influx of compositions under the influence of the two leading figures Liszt and Wagner. The project aims to support the intensive academic discourse on these movements by cataloguing and digitising the central sources from the mid-19th century until the death of Richard Wagner (1883), as well as presenting the continuation of Schott's established publishing activities through description and digitisation of works by exemplary composers. In the scope of three years, the work plan aims to cataloguing more than 100.000 leaves of mass correspondence (from 1857 to 1890) and around 57.000 reply letters from Schott, preserved in “Kopiebüchern” (copy books), and approximately 20.000/21.000 basic records for all musical sources from the music production archive “Herstellungsarchiv” from 1857 to 1883. A selection of 4.800 sources from that volume shall be receiving detailed catalogue entries and digitisation. All results will be included in the online portal “Schott-Archiv digital” (https://schottarchiv-digital.de). As a result of two previous projects from 2017 to 2025, mass correspondence to Schott and the music production archive (Herstellungsarchiv) up to 1856 have been catalogued, almost completely digitised (Herstellungsarchiv) and published online at “Schott-Archiv digital”. There, they are unlimited available together with the sources and images of Schott sources from Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin and around 9.000 entries for sources from the depository copies (Erstausgabearchiv), Safearchiv and Altes Schott-Archiv located in Bayerische Staatsbibliothek.

• DFG Programme: Cataloguing and Digitisation (Scientific Library Services and Information Systems)
• Participating Institution: Bayerische Staatsbibliothek ; Generaldirektion