AKM Music Archive

The AKM (the copyright protection society ‘Authors, Composers and Music Publishers’) was founded in 1897 and was thus the first representative society for artists. It collected music and documents of composers, lyricists, or publishers it represented by copyright. This has resulted in an extensive archive which contains compositions of the nineteenth and particularly the twentieth centuries with a focus on Austrian music. The most recent pieces illuminate the musical developments in Austria up to c. 1980, making this collection a treasure trove of Austrian (and beyond that, European) music history.

In 2014, the AKM handed over these holdings to the ABPU with the condition that they be catalogued and made accessible in compliance with copyright restrictions.

former AKM President, Prof. Robert Opratko at the handover:

"Printed music bears witness to the history of Austrian music. The AKM's sheet music holdings, which date back to the time of its foundation in 1897, should presumably document this history rather completely. We are very pleased to have found a suitable partner in the Anton Bruckner Private University to make the music available for scholarly research and teaching, but also to the interested public."

The collection of approximately 50,000 sheet music editions is currently being processed and can also be searched in the catalogue AnTon:search by using the search filter ‘AKM Notenarchiv’.

  • Recorded inventory as of Autumn 2020 – c. 7900 exemplars

A few examples are given to show the diversity of the collection:

  • Apart from many publishing house editions, there are also manuscripts and originals
  • Works from the time of the monarchy, which thus extend far beyond the current geographical area of Austria
  • Sheet music of Austrian (and moreover German, Czech, Italian) music of the interwar period
  • Light music (dances, Schlager, popular songs) with a focus on ‘Viennese music’, characterized by graphically designed title pages
  • Editions for salon orchestras, as used by the Upper Austrian health resort orchestras
  • Works from the early post-war period documenting the influence of Allied music on the development of Austrian music
  • Compositions by numerous Upper Austrian composers, including August Franz Kropfreiter, Ernst Ludwig Leitner, Fridolin Dallinger, Helmut Eder and Hermann Kronsteiner