The period c.1780–c.1830, covered by this book, was a high point in the ‘fruitful age of musical translations’ (Beethoven). This trend was driven partly by the social and political circumstances, which made private and semi-private music-making particularly feasible and appealing, creating a demand for chamber music that was within the reach of the enthusiastic amateur. But the vogue for arrangements was also a function of the music publishing trade and its governance (or lack of it) around 1800. This chapter explores the vogue for opera in Vienna from the perspectives of composers, then through the lens of publishers’ catalogues, considering which types of opera and which composers were most liked, and how opera (in various ‘musical translations’) infiltrated into Viennese homes around 1800.

An immense labour was involved before a composer’s music could reach its public. The journey from first thoughts to first night relied on the collaboration of many individuals operating in interlocking disciplines, and none were more important to that endeavour than music publishers and agents with the firm. In Britten’s case, the most important firms are Boosey & Hawkes and Faber & Faber. This chapter portrays those who worked closely with Britten as his publishers, who supported him and championed his music, including Ralph Hawkes, Erwin Stein, Hans W. Heinsheimer, Ernst Roth, Leslie Boosey, Anthony Gishford, and Donald Mitchell. Many of these individuals formed extremely close relationships with Britten, but equally, their associations were sometimes complex or fraught.

Let us begin by considering how Gabriel Fauré (1845–1924) made a way for himself in France between about 1855 and 1909. As for the posthumous international development of research into his music, that will be the focus of the latter part of this text.

German operetta of the early twentieth century was part of a transcultural entertainment industry involving cross-border financial and production networks, international rights management, and migrating musicians and performers. Collaboration networks, in which groups of people worked as a team, were the norm in operetta production. In the early 1910s and again in the 1920s, Berlin, London, and New York were competing for dominance of the musical theatre market, but these cities were also collaborating on the transfer of cultural goods. Internationalization was evident in the presence of overseas offices of major Berlin companies associated with the theatre. The buying of rights was one of the most important activities of the entrepreneur. The chapter includes a study of the financial management of Daly’s Theatre in the West End and examines the impact of the depression on the West End and Broadway.

It was, above all, the romantic melodies and rich harmonic textures of operetta that attracted British and American audiences. The music of operetta occupied a number of positions between popular musical theatre and opera. Dance rhythms formed an important part of the style of every operetta composer. American influence on German operetta had its source in the music-making of African Americans in the period just before the jazz craze of the 1920s. There was delight in mixing musical styles, and it is common to find Austro-German, Hungarian, and American styles in the same piece. While operettas with modern themes were increasingly characterized by syncopated rhythms in the 1920s, those with exotic themes were spiced up with augmented intervals, modal harmony, and ostinato rhythms. Most operetta composers in Vienna and Berlin were happy to have the help of orchestrators. Orchestrators were also on hand for New York productions.