Éditions Alphonse Leduc

Éditions Alphonse Leduc is one of France’s oldest music publishing houses. It was founded in Paris in 1841 by 37-year-old Alphonse Leduc, a self-styled composer and music publisher. There followed a successful period of growth in which Alphonse was to sign more than two thousand works under both his own name and the pseudonym Arthur Delaseurie.

Alphonse initially built a reputation for publishing songs and piano pieces, making a virtue out of a necessity since he lacked the works of distinguished opera composers. As a result, his company established a strong reputation for originating and publishing teaching material. Alphonse’s methods for flute, trumpet, clarinet and saxophone proved highly popular. Today they still enjoy worldwide recognition.

When Alphonse died in 1868 his son Alphonse-Charles took over the business, establishing a tradition of family inheritance that would see five generations of Leducs running the publishing house. Alphonse-Charles bought the French rights for Verdi’s Aïda. In 1905 his son, Alphonse-Émile, acquired the Lebeau catalogue and this included the operas of Charles Gounod. In time the Leduc assets would come to include the works of Jacques Ibert, Gabriel Fauré, Léo Delibes, Jacques Offenbach, Francis Poulenc, Olivier Messiaen and Henri Dutilleux and numerous other leading composers. The Leduc house eventually became the focal point of a whole tradition of French music, publishing new works while acquiring established catalogues, notably those of Éditions Heugel in 1980 and Éditions Hamelle in 1993.

Since 2014 Éditions Alphonse Leduc has flourished as part of Wise Music Group’s international operations with modern distribution facilities in France, the UK and the US.