Gustav Schirmer was a German music publisher. His company became one of the largest music publishers in the US and played a pivotal role in providing European music.
Background
Gustav was born on September 19, 1829 in Königsee, Germany. He was the son of Ernst Rudolph Schirmer, and his second wife, Wilhelmine (Dünkler) Schirmer, daughter of the burgomaster of Saalfeld. He came from a family of Thuringian piano manufacturers. With one son by the husband's first marriage and five children by the second, of whom Gustav was the eldest, Schirmer's parents emigrated to New York in 1840 on board the bark Autoleon, landing in New York on October 8 after a voyage of forty-six days from Hamburg.
Education
Until Gustav was fourteen Gustav attended school, occasionally earning a little money by selling matches. At fifteen he was apprenticed for a short time to a cabinetmaker.
Career
After several years of employment in the music business of Scharfenberg & Luis, Schirmer entered the employ of Kerksieg & Breusing, music dealers, where his ability and energy gained him rapid advancement to the position of manager of the store, which until 1880 was at 701 Broadway.
In 1861 with a fellow employee, Bernard Beer, he acquired the business, the firm being changed to Beer & Schirmer. Five years later he bought out Beer's interest and established the house of "G. Schirmer, music publishers, importers and dealers. "
He early developed intensive business relations not only with the large music concerns of Germany but with the leading houses of Paris, Brussels, London, Vienna, and Milan. Furthermore, he entered into personal relations with prominent European composers. Schirmer was among the original patrons of Bayreuth, who helped to make possible the realization of Wagner's "Festspielhaus. "
When the continuous growth of the business required larger quarters, a four-story building, occupied in 1880, was erected for it at 35 Union Square, and there the business remained until in 1910 it was moved to a seven-story building at 3 East Forty-third St.
In 1891 Schirmer housed in a six-story building in West Sixteenth Street his own engraving and printing plant, which developed later into a model factory at Woodside. Self-made, he had in him the fine qualities of an old European tradition to the unfolding of which America gave new and rich opportunity. He died at Eisenach, Germany, at the age of only sixty-three.
Achievements
Personality
Equally strong were his ambition to succeed in business and his devotion to his family.
Being himself an indefatigable worker, he demanded untiring effort from his associates and employees. His principles in music as in business were strict.
Connections
Schirmer married an American, Mary Fairchild, who survived him with their five daughters and two sons, one of them Rudolph Edward Schirmer. He cautioned his son Rudolph, who was taking violin lessons, to "play nicely in tune, and always with love and inner fire. "