A Visual Guide to Composers

A Visual Guide to Some Nineteenth-Century Composers and Their Publishers is an ongoing R-based data visualization project investigating a number of prominent nineteenth-century composers and the publishers responsible for issuing their works in first edition. The visualizations reveal both the frequency with which prominent composers were able to cultivate long-term relationships with publishers and the extent to which a few key firms—such as Breitkopf & Härtel—dominated the music publishing industry for much of the nineteenth century (and beyond). The data have been gathered from the thematic catalogues of the individual composers, a list of which can be found on the Sources page. In 2019, the International Review of the Aesthetics and Sociology of Music (vol. 49, no. 2) published a small subset of the data as a static table in an article called “The Negotiation of Nineteenth-Century Style: A Case Study in Composer–Publisher Relations” (p. 229). The present Visual Guide features an expanded array of composers and a far richer means of visual representation.

Principle Investigator

Derek R. Strykowski
Associate Teaching Professor
Department of Music
University at Buffalo
https://dstrykowski.com/