Friedrich August Simrock, better known as Fritz Simrock (January 2, 1837 in

Bonn Bonn () is a federal city in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, located on the banks of the Rhine. With a population exceeding 300,000, it lies about south-southeast of Cologne, in the southernmost part of the Rhine-Ruhr region. This ...

– August 20, 1901 in

Ouchy Ouchy is a port and a popular lakeside resort south of the centre of Lausanne in Switzerland, at the edge of Lake Geneva (). Facilities Very popular with tourists for the views of nearby France (Évian-les-Bains, Thonon), Ouchy is also a ...

) was a German music publisher who inherited a publishing firm from his grandfather Nikolaus Simrock. Simrock is most noted for publishing most of the music of

Johannes Brahms Johannes Brahms (; ; 7 May 1833 – 3 April 1897) was a German composer, virtuoso pianist, and conductor of the mid-Romantic period (music), Romantic period. His music is noted for its rhythmic vitality and freer treatment of dissonance, oft ...

and

Antonín Dvořák Antonín Leopold Dvořák ( ; ; 8September 18411May 1904) was a Czech composer. He frequently employed rhythms and other aspects of the folk music of Moravia and his native Bohemia, following the Romantic-era nationalist example of his predec ...

. Simrock published almost all of Brahms's pieces from Opus 16 to Opus 120Sadie, Stanley; Tyrell, John eds. (2001). ''

The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians ''The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians'' is an encyclopedic dictionary of music and musicians. Along with the German-language '' Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart'', it is one of the largest reference works on the history and t ...

'' (2nd edition). New York: Oxford University Press. and was very good friends with Brahms, even going on holidays to Italy with him. Simrock generally paid Brahms well for his music, but with Dvořák he was often unwilling to publish orchestral pieces, for example, his Eighth Symphony. Simrock was so involved in the lives of prominent musicians that

Joseph Joachim Joseph Joachim (28 June 1831 – 15 August 1907) was a Hungarian Violin, violinist, Conducting, conductor, composer and teacher who made an international career, based in Hanover and Berlin. A close collaborator of Johannes Brahms, he is widely ...

came to believe that his wife Amalie was cheating on him with Simrock, and Brahms wrote a famous "lengthy letter" in support of Amalie's innocence, which "was cited in evidence at the oachims'divorce proceedings."Robert Anderson
"Brahms in Brief"
''The Musical Times'', summer (1998): 69. The divorce was not granted. Per Brahms's advice, Simrock took a chance with the young

. After publishing only a few of Dvořák's works, his risk paid off—Dvořák quickly became one of the most popular composers in Europe. Simrock thus came to be the primary publisher of Dvořák's music for much of the composer's career, but their relationship was at times strained for a number of reasons. Among these were Simrock's stubborn insistence that Dvořák produce more light-hearted, miniature works (such as his wildly popular and extremely commercially successful Slavonic Dances, Op. 46) when the composer expressed desires to compose more large-scale orchestral works, which Simrock claimed didn't sell. Also, Simrock often confounded Dvořák with his blatantly anti-Czech sentiments, which were popular with ethnic Germans in the Habsburg Empire at the time. Dvořák, for his part, maintained his musical and moral integrity, responding calmly to Simrock's nationalistically tinged letters and admonishing him for trying to force his musical process, stating in a letter to the publisher regarding a second set of Slavonic Dances: "as long as I am not in the mood for it, I can do nothing."Siepmann, Jeremy, and Sean Barrett
''Antonín Dvořák''
S.l: Naxos, 2004. However, as Dvořák's popularity grew, he began to receive commissions for large-scale works from other publishers, notably

Novello & Co Wise Music Group is a global music publisher, with headquarters in Berners Street, London. In February 2020, Wise Music Group changed its name from The Music Sales Group. In 2014 Wise Music Group (as The Music Sales Group) acquired French cla ...

. in England, which looked increasingly tempting to the composer despite his long-term oral contract with Simrock specifying that Simrock would be his sole publisher. Despite this contract, Dvořák began to accept the commissions from

, for which Simrock threatened, but did not follow through on, legal action.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Simrock, Fritzs 1837 births 1901 deaths Businesspeople from the Kingdom of Prussia 19th-century German publishers (people) Johannes Brahms Antonín Dvořák