Bärenreiter

Here is my opinion.

If you are a musician and you see a piece of music published by Bärenreiter for your instrument that you haven’t played before, you should try it.

Bärenreiter is a classical music publishing house based in Kassel, Germany.

Bärenreiter’s publications stand out on bookshelves and music stands thanks to the careful attention paid to their design and production.

But Bärenreiter’s real value proposition goes beyond their talents at the press. Their “urtext” series collects entire sets of work from composers keeping their music alive and available.

And fortunately for me, there are a number of excellent works for cello among them. I’ve never seen Bärenreiter make a bad choice about what to run.

Bärenreiter publications can be difficult to find, but a number of music book sellers are now selling them online.

Some years ago they made a brand video in which the famous conductor and musicologist Christopher Hogwood walks the halls of the company’s HQ knocking on doors and having fascinating conversations.

It is a brand video, so you happen upon a board meeting (they have an amazing board), meet family members of the founder, learn the story of the bear and the rider in the logo, and so forth.

The thing one is left with is that they do not believe the final word has been said about the great composers of the past, and there is still much work to do to keep their work alive and in-performance.

My favorite part of the tour is the visit to the pressroom where a print manager describes the criteria for choosing the right paper on which to print the scores - has to feel good to the touch, have pages that turn quietly, and cannot be translucent.