Salabert

Typical imported song cover (ca. 1920)
Typical imported song cover (ca. 1920)
Typical local musical comedy cover (ca. 1920)

Contents

History

Edouard Salabert (1838-1903) founded a small music store and publishing house in Paris in 1878, but it had a tenuous existence animated only by its securing the rights to Sousa's marches. When Edouard became infirm, his 16-year old son Francis (1884-1946) took over in 1901. Francis Salabert single-handedly created France's Tin Pan Alley, the publishing and marketing of popular songs on an industrial scale.

With Phi Phi in 1918 (text by Willmetz and Soller, music by Christiné) Salabert started his musical comedy career. He was a gifted businessman. Firstly his marketing was aggressive, installing subtitles above the stage so that the audience could sing along. Then he was a tough negotiator with his composers, giving them big advances in return for exclusive publication deals, and while giving the composers the domestic copyright, insisting on the foreign copyright for himself. He also credited himself with the arrangement of most of his printed songs.

However abrasive this was in personal terms, this strategy worked, and composers flocked to his firm: Chantrier, Szulc, Cuvillier, Moretti, Pearly & Chagnon, Mercier, Gabaroche, Lattès, Van Parys, Bastia, Verdun, Sylviano, Oberfeld and Scotto. From 1920 to 1935 he was the king of musical comedy in Paris. He even persuaded serious composers to join him: Messager, Hahn, Honegger, Beydts and Pierné. He was also skilled at selling his properties abroad: "He was among the first to internationalize popular music"1—film music included. Salabert continued to expand throughout the twentieth century, publishing music of Les Six, and absorbing A.Z. Mathot (1930), Rouart, Lerolle et Cie. (1941) and Maurice Senart (1941) and Raymond Deiss (1946).

Music publishing was a different world in the post-war period, just a small part of the recorded music and movie business, and Mme. Salabert, who continued to run the firm upon Francis's sudden death in a plane crash, could not turn back the clock. Other smaller publishers, such as Tutti Intersong, published the chanson singers of the 50s and 60s, and American music flooded the world.

The company was sold to BMG (Bertelsmann) in 1994, who subsequently acquired Durand/Eschig/Amphion (2000). In 2007 BMG then sold its entire music publishing business (including Ricordi and Editio Musica Budapest, in additon to Durand/Salabert/Eschig) to the record label Universal Music Publishing Group (no relation to Universal Edition Vienna).

Editions

Imprints, Agencies, Addresses

22, rue Chauchat, Paris (1908-199-?)

Plate Numbers

Plate Composer Work Year
Enescu Symphony No.2, Op.17 (score) 1965
E.A.S. 00640 Medeiros Os boêmios 1914
E.A.S. 03344 Yvain La belote 1924
E.A.S. 03650 Gabaroche Si vous saviez comme c'est bon 1925
E.A.S. 04036 Daris Ah! qu'ça jazz 1926
E.A.S. 04068 Thuillier Le trompette en caoutchouc 1926
E.A.S. 05720 Rosi Y a du pour! 1925
S.6617 Honegger Pastorale d'Été (reprint)
E.A.S. 07488 Bach Passacaglia in C minor, BWV 582 (arr. for piano by Szántó) 1932
E.A.S. 07837 Dyck Kadisch (sc&pt for violin and pf) 1932
S.8676 Blanchet Exercices en Forme Musicale, Op.54
E.M.S. 08819 Honegger Jeanne d'Arc au bûcher (vocal score) 1939
E.A.S. 15219 Enescu Impressions d'enfance, Op.28 1952
E.A.S. 15589 Lipatti Sonatina for the Left Hand 1953
E.A.S. 15615 Honegger Jeanne d'Arc au bûcher (study score) 1947
E.A.S. 15711 Lipatti Danses roumaines (arr. for 2 pianos) 1954
E.A.S. 15999 Enescu Chamber Symphony, Op.33 (score) 1959
E.A.S. 16135 Loucheur Symphony No.2 (study score) 1958
E.A.S. 16171 Mompou Musica callada 1959
E.A.S. 17021 Satie Relâche (extract arr. for piano solo) 1972
E.A.S. 17127 Maderna Oboe Concerto No.3 (f.s.) 1973
E.A.S. 17245p Xenakis Empreintes: pour orchestre (score) (1975) 1987
E.A.S. 17251 Xenakis Phlegra : pour onze instrumentistes (score) 1976
E.A.S. 17298 Takemitsu Quatrain II (score) 1984
E.A.S. 17313p Xenakis Jonchaies: pour grand orchestre (score) 1977
E.A.S. 17329 Landowski Concerto for trumpet, orchestra and electronics (f.s.) 1976
E.A.S. 17369 Landowski Un enfant appelle (concerto) (f.s.) 1982
E.A.S. 17436 Rivier 3 Espaces sonores (sc&pts) 1979
E.A.S. 17547 Xenakis Orkos: pour chœur mixte (ed. def.) 1990
E.A.S. 17622p Xenakis Pour les baleines (score) 1982
E.A.S. 18764 Satie Nouvelles pièces froides (reprint) 1989
E.A.S. 18764 Satie Gnossiennes (reprint of nos.4-6) 1989

Links

Sources Consulted

  • The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, edited by Stanley Sadie.
New York and London: Macmillan Publications, 1980.

Authority control

  • VIAF (Editions Salabert)

Also see