Works of a dictionary character also began to be important, such as those by Sulzer on the fine arts generally (1772-99, continued by Blankenburg); by Johann Georg Meusel (d. 1820) on living art-workers (1778-1803); by G. F. Wolf on terms, etc. (1787); by Joos Verschuere-Reynvaan (d. 1809) on the same (1790-5, only to 'M')—a pioneer work in Dutch; by Ernst Ludwig Gerber (d. 1819), two invaluable works on musicians (1790-92, 1812-4); besides many articles (from 1794), by Johann Gottfried Geisler (d. 1827) on instruments (1792-1800), by Knecht on terms (1795), and, most scholarly of all, by Heinrich Christoph Koch (d. 1816) on terms (1802) and on musicians (1807). Johann Wilhelm Hertel (d. 1789) left in MS. a volume of additions (1752-60) to Walther's Lexicon, besides editing a collection of Italian and French works about music (1757-8).
Throughout the half-century, experiments continued with periodicals of different sorts—almost 20 in all. Most of these lived but a short time. The conspicuous exception was the important Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung, founded at Leipsic in 1798, probably by Friedrich Rochlitz, and published by Breitkopf & Härtel, which continued till 1848. Several of the others, though not permanent, were interesting expressions of literary enterprise and often contained articles of value.
From this period date several famous publishing houses, such as that of Schott at Mayence, founded about 1770; that of André at Offenbach, founded in 1774 by Johann André (d. 1799) and greatly advanced by his son Johann Anton André (d. 1842); that of Artaria at Vienna, founded in 1778; that of Leuckart at Breslau (now Leipsic), founded in 1782; and that of Simrock at Bonn and Cologne (now Berlin), founded in 1790.
The process of lithography having been invented in 1798 by Aloys Senefelder of Munich, it was immediately applied to the printing of music, largely through the efforts of Franz Gleissner (d. after 1815), whose own first symphony was lithographed in 1798. André and Breitkopf & Härtel were prompt to take up this improvement.
166. Summary of the Half-Century.—The age of Haydn,
Gluck and Mozart presents most interesting contrasts with both
that which preceded and that which followed. But these contrasts
differ in nature and in intensity. At each stage we see
ideas coming to consummation that had long been germinating,
but the three stages differ in the ideas chosen for expression. In
passing out of the Bach-Handel period music went through a
sort of revolution, and again in entering upon the 19th century
it experienced another revolution, but in a different direction.
Beginning with Haydn's work, a novel type of musical structure presented itself. The attention of composers now swung with emphasis either to explicit melodiousness or to a harmony that was melodically controlled. The organic interdependence of melody and form was more clearly apprehended. And there
