MS Mus. 1813/2/1/9-196

Business correspondence and papers of Dr. Ernst Roth (1 June 1896 – 17 July 1971), Music Publications and Production Director of Boosey & Hawkes, Ltd. from 1945; later Managing Director and Deputy Chairman until his retirement in 1964. The files were accumulated in the course of business involving Dr. Roth or his office at 295, Regent Street, London, the firm’s headquarters. They record many of the activities of Boosey & Hawkes’ publishing division, including those of its overseas subsidiaries, and comprise both internal and external correspondence as well as internal records, statements, memoranda and reports. The records appear to be more or less complete, especially in the late 1950s and early 1960s.

This series of files has a broadly chronological arrangement, generally falling into roughly yearly cycles. Within each cycle are further divisions into categories that reflect Dr. Roth’s administrative responsibilities. They include most or all of the following:

• General: General business correspondence concerning external individuals or organisations: composers, conductors, musicians, other publishing houses, printers, broadcasting corporations, performance rights bodies, opera houses, ballet societies, agencies, and members of the general public.
• Agents: Correspondence involving music dealers acting as agents for Boosey & Hawkes overseas. Agents in several continents are represented, including in countries in eastern Europe and in South America. The supply of materials for hire is also a subject of discussion.
• Branches: Correspondence and papers concerning Boosey & Hawkes' subsidiary branches overseas, or dealers trading under Boosey & Hawkes' name — in Bonn (West Germany), New York (Boosey & Hawkes, Inc.), Canada, Australia, South Africa, Sweden and Paris (22 rue d'Anjou). In some cases, direct correspondence with the managers of these branches is contained in a separate file.
• Budgets or Accounts: Internal documentation, reports and statements concerning Boosey & Hawkes' finances and accounts, including of subsidiary branches overseas.
• Music Department: Internal correspondence involving or relating to the staff and departments under Ernst Roth's oversight, some at the firm's headquarters at 295 Regent Street in London, others at the factory and warehouse at Edgware (Middlesex) or at the old premises owned by Hawkes & Son at Berners Street and Denman Street, London. These departments include Accounts (S. C. Smeed), Advertising (or Promotion), Copyright, Education, Engraving, Exports, Hire Library, Instruments, Light Music (Monia Liter), Military and Brass Band Music (H. Lemon), Orchestral, Personnel, Promotion, Publishing (S. C. Smeed), Recorded Music (Bassett Silver), the 'Tempo' journal, the public 'show room' at 295, Regent Street, and the firm's travelling sales representatives. Internal correspondence with other directors and senior figures in the firm, such as Leslie Boosey, Ralph Boosey and Geoffrey Hawkes, also falls into this category.
• Theatres and Opera Houses or similar: Correspondence with theatres, opera houses and occasionally broadcasters, mainly reagarding the hire of orchestral material for performances.

Below each of these categories the next important intellectual division are the individual files themselves, which are generally arranged alphabetically by correspondent. In the case of files which involve various different correspondents, many individual names have been listed (in order of their first appearance in the file), but not necessarily all. The catalogue is therefore not comprehensively searchable by keyword. The hierarchical view of the catalogue, however, can also be used to navigate the archive.

Some files do not fall into this structure. For example, sub-sub-series MS Mus. 1813/2/1/172-185 comprises files specifically concerning 'contrats-types' (standard forms of contract, or skeleton contracts) between Boosey & Hawkes and various broadcasters and performance rights bodies for the years 1953-1957.

These records are mainly connected with Boosey & Hawkes’ music-publishing division rather than its instrument-manufacturing division, for which the Horniman Museum in Forest Hill, London, holds some records.