The Music Sales Group has completed an acquisitions of family-run French publisher Éditions Alphonse Leduc.
Founded in 1842, Éditions Alphonse Leduc started by specialising in piano tutors then expanded to acquire operatic works by Rossini, Bellini, Weber and Meyerbeer, as well as pieces by Clémenti, Hummel, Weber and Onslow and a famous piano tutor by Viguerie.
Later its acquisition of Éditions Hamelle added works by Brahms, Fauré, Lalo, Saint-Saëns, Mussorgsky and Tchaikovsky, while a purchase of Éditions Heugel in the 1990s brought with it Rossini’s The Barber of Seville and Delibes’ Coppélia.
Significantly, Éditions Alphonse Leduc’s acquired the Hartmann catalogue which features works by Massenet, Franck, Lalo and Reyer.
Under the fifth generation of the Leduc family, the company has more recently acquired works by Olivier Messiaen, Francis Poulenc, Jacques Ibert, Henri Dutilleux and Joseph Canteloube. A flourishing range of instrumental tutors, notably those for flute by Marcel Moyse and Philippe Gaubert, reinforced Leduc’s traditional strength in the educational print publishing sector.
Music Sales CEO Robert Wise said: "It is a source of great satisfaction for us to acquire such a prestigious and long-established publishing house as Éditions Alphonse Leduc. Its catalogue very well complements those we already own and, as the MD of an independent family company myself; I am particularly pleased to add what has been such a well-respected French family concern to our range of publishing houses."
