Joy of Music – Discoveries from the Schott Archives

Founded in 1770 by Bernhard Schott in Mainz, the Schott music publishing house celebrates its 250th anniversary in 2020. The anniversary’s motto is ‘Joy of Music’ because Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9, published by Schott in 1826, is one of the most important works in music history, with Schiller’s famous final chorus ‘Ode to Joy’. To mark this anniversary, the Schott publishing house has dug up and reedited treasures from its historical publishing archives. The anthologies are aimed at professional musicians and advanced amateurs and students interested in new discoveries off the standard repertoire. They mainly contain works from the Romantic era: virtuoso encore pieces, gems of salon music, expressive character pieces, and elaborate arrangements of well-known (opera) melodies. Many of the original compositions and arrangements were written by major virtuosos of the 19th century. En-joy!