Music Publishers Journal

The Music Publishers Journal [RIPM code MPJ], dedicated to the advancement of music in America during the critical period of the Second World War, was published each year as six bi-monthly issues by the Music Publishers Journal Co., with offices in the RKO Building in New York City, from January 1943 to July-August, 1946. At the beginning of publication, the Managing Director and Advertising Manager was Al Vann and the Editor David Norris. Additional officers were added in 1944: Marguerite Mooney, Circulation Manager, and Ennis Davis and Jean Tanner as editors. The issues, each of forty to fifty or more pages, are printed in three column format. In almost all cases, the articles are signed, and information of the writer’s position in American musical life is noted, and with an accompanying portrait photograph. For some articles, the editor provides short biographical information or a synopsis of the article topic. The many advertisements, scattered throughout each issue, include lists of new and standard publications of classical and popular compositions, issued by the many American music publishers of the United States: these include such well-known companies such as Broadcast Music, Inc. (BMI); Robbins Music Corporation; Leeds Music Corporation; Carl Fischer; C. C. Birchard; Robbins Music; and Schroeder & Gunther. Other important advertisements are those of the Radio Corporation of America (RCA) Victor Recording Company, the National Broadcasting Company (NBC).

The articles are written by many outstanding music practitioners, active in the musical life of America in the 1940s, include Vernon Duke (composer who also wrote under his birth name Vladimir Dukelsky), Edward Johnson (tenor and Metropolitan Opera Association manager), Harry T. Burleigh (Black composer), Artur Rodzinski (conductor), Sigmund Spaeth (writer on music), Franz Waxman (conductor), William S. Paley (CBS radio administrator), Howard Hanson (composer and educator), Aaron Copland (composer), Samuel Chotzinoff (music critic), Minna Lederman (editor of Modern Music), Morton Gould (composer and conductor), Eugene Goossens (composer and conductor), Oscar Hammerstein II (song writer), E. Robert Schmitz (pianist), Bernard Hermann and Franz Waxman (film score composers), and Isadore Fried (music educator). A number of important themes found throughout the issues revolve around the effect of the Second World War on the musical life of the United States: the conscription of able men for military service resulting in the reduction of the civilian work force, women in the workplace, the shortages of paper material for printing and the postwar future of music. The editor provides an overview of the content at the outset of each issue, and often provides an editorial at an issue’s end on a pertinent topic. While many of the topics discussed commercial aspects of the publishing trade, the broader theme of musical education and musical life remained the focus of the journal’s contributions.

Each issue has one or more common themes, for which several articles are devoted.

Volume I

No. 1, January-February, 1943: Music in the Second World War, a weapon for democracy; democratic influences on composition, America a new cultural center.

No. 2, March-April, 1943: Wartime institutes, music and government in wartime, mass appeal of symphonic music on radio advertisers, circus music.

No. 3, May-June, 1943: Music education in the war effort, democracy through singing, musical instrument factories converted to war production.

No. 4, July-August, 1943: New values for the postwar world, music education, the dance orchestra in the school instrumental program, the National Federation of Music Clubs.

No. 5, September-October, 1943: Problems in American symphonic music, training of composers, a conductor on contemporary compositions, music in the American theater.

No. 6, November-December, 1943: Music and religion, the American composer and church music, Jewish sacred music.

Volume II

No. 1, January-February, 1944: Opinions of important American musicians on symphony, chamber and operatic music, the frontiers of American composition, radio and music, music in the armed forces.

No. 2, March-April, 1944: Vocal music, care and development of the human voice, singing versus crooning.

No. 3, May-June, 1944: Music in Canada and Latin America, band musicians at their battle stations, Negro GIs, the Library of Congress folk song collection.

No. 4, July-August, 1944: American folk song, college music education and radio, radio-electronics and music education.

No. 5, September-October, 1944: American conductors and composers, the fallacy of musical modernism, psychological causes of première mania.

No. 6, November-December, 1944: Music in the Mormon faith, Roman Catholic and Protestant churches, finance and the composer, the Negro spiritual, music in treatment of mental and nervous diseases.

Volume III

No. 1, January-February, 1945: Concert and marching bands and band music.

No. 2, March-April, 1945: Problems with the development of young stringed instrument players.

No. 3, May-June, 1945: Story of the New York City Center of Drama and Music.

No. 4, July-August, 1945: Music education and music educators.

No. 5, September-October, 1945: Motion picture music.

No. 6, November-December, 1945: Protestant and Roman Catholic church music.

Volume IV

No. 1, January-February, 1946: Music from wartime to peacetime.

No. 2, March-April, 1946: Problems for music teachers who plan and direct school music programs.

No. 3, May-June, 1946: Music and public and school libraries, the Music Library Association.

No. 4, July-August, 1946: the G.I. Bill of Rights and music education.

With volume V, the journal retitled itself as Music Journal (New York, 1946-1987) which would have a greater focus on music education.