Nabokov, Nicolas [Nikolay]

Novello & Co.

English firm of music publishers, established in London. The origins of the firm can be traced back to Vincent Novello (see Novello family, (1)), who undertook the publishing expenses of the various anthologies he compiled and edited, starting with A Collection of Sacred Music as Performed at the Royal Portuguese Chapel (1811). His eldest son J. Alfred Novello (see Novello family, (2)) established the business as a full commercial enterprise by opening premises in Soho in 1829. One of the first publications of Novello & Co. was the completion of the edition of Purcell's sacred music which the elder Novello had started in 1828. Alfred Novello soon discovered the artistic and commercial possibilities of cheap editions of standard works. The growth of interest in choral music through the massed singing classes of John Hullah and others was both fostered and catered for by the firm with publications such as Novello's Choral Handbook and Mainzer's Singing for the Million, and by Alfred Novello's own commercial tours. Together with the issue, from 1846, of cheap vocal scores of Handel's oratorios, these gave tremendous impetus to the amateur choral movement in Britain.

The founding of The Musical Times and Singing Class Circular in 1844 was a further important step in the firm's history. Each number contained one or more choral pieces in the octavo size of the journal, thus starting the ‘Octavo Editions’ which soon became almost universal practice for choral music. In order to reduce costs further Alfred Novello established his own printing office in 1847, and broke many of the restrictive practices of the printing trade. From then on most of the editions were produced from a fine new music type, which proved very economical for large editions, though about 1900 the firm began to revert to engraving for many of their publications. A further contribution to the cause of cheap music was the repeal of the various taxes on paper and advertisements between 1853 and 1861, for which Alfred Novello had long campaigned. The volume of the firm's business increased steadily, and in 1849 and 1851 various plates and copyrights were bought from Coventry & Hollier. Books on music were also produced, and included a new edition of Hawkins's History, issued in parts in 1852–3.

On Alfred Novello's retirement in 1857 Henry Littleton (b London, 2 Jan 1823; d London, 11 May 1888), who had been employed by the firm since 1841, took over as manager, becoming a partner in 1861 and sole proprietor in 1866. Under his direction the firm expanded even more rapidly. In 1857 it began the regular publication of modern anthems by composers such as Goss, Hopkins and Monk, and in 1861 it published the first edition of Hymns Ancient and Modern. In 1867 the business of Ewer was acquired, along with many Mendelssohn copyrights (including Elijah), and the firm became Novello, Ewer & Co. Littleton soon directed more attention to the publication of secular music, with ventures such as octavo vocal scores of operas, beginning with Fidelio in 1870, and the catalogue came to include orchestral music as well. The firm also undertook concert promotion on a large scale, including the Oratorio Concerts and the management of the 200 free concerts given at the International Exhibition of 1873–4. It engaged Verdi to conduct four performances of his Requiem in May 1875, and from 1881 began an association with Dvořák. The firm came almost to monopolize the oratorio, and besides publishing many new works it often printed works and selections for particular festival performances. Prices were further reduced during the 1860s, and the firm pioneered pocket and Tonic Sol-fa editions. It issued the first volume of the Purcell Society editions in 1878, and has remained the society's publisher.

Henry Littleton retired in 1887, and was succeeded by his sons Alfred (b London, 15 Feb 1845; d London, 8 Nov 1914) and Augustus (b London, 8 Nov 1854; d London, 22 April 1942), who in turn became chairmen. In 1898 the firm became a limited company. At the end of the 19th century it began an interest in school music, with the founding of The School Music Review in 1892, and later with Music in Schools (from 1937) and its successor Music in Education (1944–78). From the turn of the century many important English composers, most notably Elgar, were associated with the firm. Elgar's music was championed in particular by the Novello editor A.J. Jaeger (b Düsseldorf, 18 March 1860; d London, 18 May 1909), who joined the firm in 1890 and, besides writing analytical notes for Elgar's works, helped promote the music of Horatio Parker and Coleridge-Taylor. During the late 1920s and 30s Bantock, Holst, Bliss and, later, Moeran published with Novello. In 1936 Adolf Aber (b Apolda, Thuringia, 28 Jan 1893; d London, 21 May 1960), formerly a partner in the firm of Friedrich Hofmeister, joined the board of directors and enriched the Novello catalogue by adding to it works by German composers such as Scheidt, Schicht and Kuhnau. After World War II younger composers such as Joubert, Leighton and McCabe were taken on; in the early 1970s the firm's list was considerably expanded, with Richard Rodney Bennett, Thea Musgrave, David Blake, Jonathan Harvey and Aulis Sallinen among those associated. The traditional association with oratorio was strengthened with the publication in 1959 of Watkins Shaw's critical performing edition of Messiah (intended to replace the old one by Ebenezer Prout). The business of Elkin & Co. was acquired in 1960, and those of Goodwin & Tabb (including its large orchestral hire library) and Paxton in 1971. The firm has acted as agent for several overseas publishers, including Hänssler, Henle, Leuckart, Molenaar, Möseler, Müller, Ricordi, Rubank and Zimmermann. In 1970 Novello became part of the Granada group of companies; in 1988 it was taken over by Filmtrax and in 1993 by Music Sales. The Musical Times ceased to be a Novello publication from 1988 and underwent a further change of ownership in 1995. Much of the firm's manuscript music and business archive was presented to the British Library in 1986–9, but a number of the other important retained manuscript scores were subsequently sent for auction in 1989. The remainder of the historical archive still in the firm's hands, including the letters from Dvořák, Elgar, Mendelssohn and Stanford, was dispersed by auction in May 1996.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Humphries-SmithMP

Neighbour-TysonPN

J. Bennett: A Short History of Cheap Music as Exemplified in the Records of the House of Novello, Ewer & Co. (London, 1887)

‘Soho and the House of Novello’, MT, xlvii (1906), 797–802

‘The Novello Centenary, 1811–1911’, MT, lii (1911), June suppl.

P.A. Scholes, ed.: The Mirror of Music 1844–1944 (London, 1947/R)

A Century and a Half in Soho: a Short History of the Firm of Novello, Publishers and Printers of Music, 1811–1961 (London, 1961)

N. Temperley: ‘MT and Musical Journalism, 1844’, MT, cx (1969), 583–6

M. Miller: ‘The Early Novello Octavo Editions’, Music and Bibliography: Essays in Honour of Alec Hyatt King, ed. O. Neighbour (London, 1980), 160–69

M. Hurd: Vincent Novello – and Company (London, 1981)

M. Hurd: ‘The Novello Archives’, MT, cxxvi (1986), 687–8

J.N. Moore: Elgar and his Publishers (London, 1987)

V. Cooper-Deathridge: ‘“The Novello Stockbook” of 1858–1869: a Chronicle of Publishing Activity’, Notes, xliv (1987–8), 240–51

V.L. Cooper: The House of Novello: Practice and Policy of a Victorian Music Publisher, 1829–1866 (diss., U. of Chicago, 1992)

P. Ward Jones: ‘Mendelssohn and his English Publishers’, Mendelssohn Studies, ed. R.L. Todd (Cambridge, 1992), 240–55

HARVEY GRACE/PETER WARD JONES