The Alfred Schlee era

Alfred Schlee (1901-1999)

With its commitment to modernism, Universal Edition had laid the foundation for a sustainable publishing house at the beginning of the 20th century, which became the artistic home for the great names of a new dawning era in music history. It can only be described as a stroke of luck that Alfred Schlee continued to run the business just as instinctively soon afterwards.

Schlee worked exclusively in Vienna from 1938, the year of Austria's annexation to Hitler's Germany. During the Nazi dictatorship, Schlee hid scores in churches and in his house at the Semmering, among other places, or took them to a safe foreign country. With these activities, he created the preconditions for the availability of playable material after 1945 by those composers who are now considered modern classics. ‘I didn't think primarily of the moment, but of the future; it was always at the forefront of my thoughts,’ he recalled: ‘If you weren't afraid, you could achieve a lot later, even with the Russians, and so it was possible - with the help of many friends - to preserve the existence of the publishing house in Vienna and to prepare for the resumption of unhindered activity on the day of liberation.’

Even during the war years, Schlee kept in touch with Rolf Liebermann and Frank Martin and promised them admission to the publishing house "when the mess here is over". From 1951, Schlee formed the publishing board with Alfred Kalmus and Ernst Hartmann.

„Picture postcards of utopia“

Schlee brought composers such as Karlheinz Stockhausen, Pierre Boulez, Luciano Berio, Mauricio Kagel, Morton Feldman, Arvo Pärt and Wolfgang Rihm to the publishing house.

Just as Hertzka was not only a reliable partner but also a friend to the greats of his time, Schlee also enjoyed the composers' unreserved recognition. From the beginning, Schlee had taken personal charge of Boulez and invited him to a hut in the Alps. But unfortunately, there was fog everywhere and nothing could be seen. That's when Schlee bought a postcard and gave it to Boulez: ‘This is how it normally looks here.’ Boulez later recalled this episode with the words: ‘Schlee always bought the picture postcard of utopia.’

When Arvo Pärt was expelled from the Soviet Union, it was Schlee who welcomed him to Vienna and signed the composer, who was little known at the time. Schlee also made a personal offer to Wolfgang Rihm after a premiere in Donaueschingen. Schlee combined artistic understanding, economic competence and human integrity in the best possible way.

Over the decades, the trade in sheet music had developed into ‘an institute with a cultural mission’, as Alfred Schlee put it in 1976 in an exhibition catalogue for Universal Edition's 75th birthday. In the last decades, Georg Friedrich Haas, Sir Harrison Birtwistle, Cristóbal Halffter, Victoria Borisova-Ollas, Jay Schwartz, Luke Bedford, David Fennessy, Mauricio Sotelo and Johannes Maria Staud, among others, completed the line-up of UE composers

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