Heckel

Wagner cover 1888
Wolf unfinished opera 1902
Wolf songs 1896
Wolf songs 1891

Contents

History

Karl Ferdinand Heckel (1800-1870) founded a shop for musical instruments in Mannheim in 1821. Soon afterwards, he added a music publishing branch to his firm. In 1823 he acquired the music publishing company G. Kreitner from nearby Worms. In 1857, his son Emil Heckel (1831-1908) became partner of the company. The bassoon maker Johann Adam Heckel (1812-77) and his descendants are probably no relation.

After Karl Ferdinand Heckels death in 1870, his two sons Emil and Karl (1858-1923) led the firm together under the original name (K.F. Heckel), but Karl left the company soon afterwards to pursue other projects. Emil Heckel was a talented activist in the 1870s, playing a leading role in the building of Wagner's festival theater in Bayreuth. He has been described as follows: „Heckel war, heute würde man sagen: ein begnadeter Netzwerker und überaus begabter Kaufmann“ (in today's terms, a gifted networker and exceptional businessman).

Karl Heckel jnr. shared these qualities. His moment came in the most significant period of the firm's history, which was much later, at the end of the 19th century. Strangely, although Mannheim was a backwater compared with Vienna, where Brahms, Wolf and R. Strauss had raised the Lied to great heights in the previous 30 years, Heckel made a great contribution to the publication of this genre. This is because of the pure chance that there was a group of Wolf supporters in Mannheim, set up by Oskar Grohe, a judge by profession, who had been inspired by a laudatory article on Wolf by Joseph Schalk in the Münchene Algemeine Zeitung in 1890, which according to Walker, Wolf's biographer, "kindled a flame of enthusiasm throughout South Germany". This circle, which included the opera conductor Felix Weingartner and Karl Heckel, promoted the premiere of Wolf's opera Der Corregidor at Mannheim in 1896, after it had been rejected by the major opera houses in Austria-Hungary.

As part of this Wolf vogue, in 1895 the firm purchased all compositions by Hugo Wolf (1860-1903) from B. Schott's Söhne in Mainz. Subsequently Emil Heckel edited Wolf's complete songs, and the firm also reprinted earlier editions by Schott, Emil Wetzler and C. Lacom. In addition, 1902 and 1903 saw the publication of six orchestrated editions of Hugo Wolf songs. After Emil Heckel's death in 1908, the Goethe-Songs, the Mörike-Songs as well as the Italian Songbook of Wolf passed to C.F. Peters in Leipzig, and Heckel's moment in the limelight of publishing history had passed.

Editions

  • 1827-1830: piano scores of Mozart operas: "Wohlfeile Ausgabe von W.A. Mozarts sämmtlichen Opern", with the first complete edition of "La finta giardiniera" (vol. 6, 1829)
  • starting 1832: edition of an organ journal together with Jakob Vierling (1796-1867)
  • 1840 (ca.?): pocket scores of chamber music by Beethoven, Haydn und Mozart
  • 1888: first edition of Wagner’s "Die Feen"
  • 1895: acquisition of the complete compositions by Hugo Wolf from B. Schott's Söhne (Mainz)
  • 1896: piano score of Der Corregidor (Wolf), Italienisches Liederbuch, Vol. 2 (Wolf)
  • 1897: Drei Gedichte von Robert Reinick (Wolf), Drei Gesänge auf Ibsens Das Fest aus Solhaug (Wolf), Vier Gedichte nach Heine, Shakespeare und Lord Byron (Wolf), piano score of Manuel Venegas (Wolf)
  • 1898: Drei Gedichte von Michelangelo (Wolf)
  • 1902: orchestrated version of Dem Vaterland (Reinick/Wolf), Wo find ich Trost? (Mörike/Wolf), Der Rattenfänger (Goethe/Wolf), Anakreons Grab (Goethe/Wolf), Prometheus (Goethe/Wolf)
  • 1903: orchestrated version of Gebet (Mörike/Wolf), Gesang Weylas (Mörike/Wolf)


Imprints, Addresses, Agencies

  • Mannheim, K. Ferd. Heckel (Hofmusikalienhandlung S.K.H. des Grossherzogs v. Baden.)


Engraving and Printing Partners


Plate Numbers

Examples for the stucture of Heckel's plate numbering:

  • H.6 W.E. = Heft 6, Wolf, Eichendorff
  • H.16 W.M. = Heft 16, Wolf, Mörike

PLATE TABLE

Plate Composer Work Year
00040 Dickhut Trio for Guitar, Flute, Horn or Viola, Op.6 (pts)

IMSLP Entries

Plate #Full PlateComposerWorkIMSLP #Full YearYear

Sources Consulted

  • Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart. 2., neu bearb. Ausg. ed. Ludwig Finscher. Kassel: Bärenreiter, Stuttgart: Metzler 2002. Personenteil Bd. 8, S.1135-1137
  • Oxford Music Online, Heckel (ii)

Authority control

  • VIAF (K. Ferd. Heckel (Mannheim))
  • VIAF (Heckel, K. Ferd. (Karl Ferd.), 1800-1870)