In 1930, in London, two rival musical publishing dynasties united: Boosey & Co. (founded by John Boosey in 1792) and Hawkes & Son (founded by William Henry Hawkes in 1865) merged to form Boosey & Hawkes. Driven by Leslie Boosey and Ralph Hawkes, the merged house became the world’s preeminent custodian of modern classical music, publishing the masterworks of Igor Stravinsky, Benjamin Britten, Sergei Prokofiev, Sergei Rachmaninoff, and Béla Bartók.
The Regent Street Merger: Merging Scores and Woodwinds
In the wake of the 1929 stock market crash, Leslie Boosey and Ralph Hawkes realized that survival in the recording and broadcasting era required joining Boosey’s distinguished song catalogue and ballad concerts with Hawkes’s dominant military brass and woodwind instrument manufacturing. Merging in 1930 at 295 Regent Street, Boosey & Hawkes created an unprecedented musical empire combining instrument workshops in Edgware with premier classical sheet music publishing.
Ralph Hawkes pursued visionary international modern composers with aggressive artistic conviction, acquiring the historic Édition Russe de Musique and signing exclusive publishing covenants with Igor Stravinsky, Béla Bartók, and Richard Strauss.
Benjamin Britten, Covent Garden, and Modern Composition
Boosey & Hawkes played a monumental role in twentieth-century music drama: they nurtured the genius of young English composer Benjamin Britten, publishing his landmark opera Peter Grimes in 1945, and leased the Royal Opera House at Covent Garden to rescue British operatic and ballet culture from wartime ruin. Leslie Boosey simultaneously co-founded the Performing Right Society (PRS) and CISAC, championing authors’ and composers’ intellectual property rights internationally.
Headquartered today at Aldwych House in central London and operating as an esteemed imprint of Concord Music, Boosey & Hawkes prepares for its 2030 centenary as the supreme living archive of twentieth-century classical and contemporary musical art.
Padova: il fabbricante di organi e la liuteria musicale
Immagini d'archivio storico dell'Istituto Luce che celebrano la nobiltà della liuteria, la costruzione di strumenti musicali e la maestria delle grandi partiture orchestrali del Novecento. (Fonte: Archivio Storico Istituto Luce Cinecittà)
Interactive 360° Heritage View: Boosey & Hawkes Historic Regent Street Publishing Quarter
Historical Location: 295 Regent Street, Marylebone, London W1B 2HJ, United Kingdom (Coordinates: 51.5165, -0.1432)
Sources
- S1 — Wallace, Helen. Boosey & Hawkes: The Publishing Story. Boosey & Hawkes, 2007. ISBN 978-0-85162-514-0.
- S2 — Ehrlich, Cyril. The Music Profession in Britain since the Eighteenth Century. Oxford University Press, 1985. ISBN 978-0-19-822665-9.
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