A Dictionary of Music and Musicians/Scheurmann, Gustav

by William Henderson

SCHEURMANN, Gustav, a native of Prussia, commenced the practical working of his patent processes of type-music-printing in 1856, at 86 Newgate Street, where he had been long established as a music publisher, and keeper of a circulating library of music. Feeling that music-printing was capable of much improvement, he devoted himself with extraordinary zeal to the perfecting of the various features of his patents (May 17, and Oct. 11, 1856). His chief aims were the production of an inexpensive kind of music-type, which would cost less for setting up; an easy mode of transposing to various keys; and a marked improvement in the general appearance of the music. Everything was done under his own supervision. Punch-cutters, type-founders, compositors, pressmen, and electrotypers were engaged, and rapid progress made, the various processes being carried out upon the premises. The mode of procedure was to set up the notes and various characters in one 'forme,' and the staves, formed of brass rules, in another, bringing the two together for proofs or printing. The press used for this purpose was one of peculiar construction. Both 'formes' were placed upon the same 'table,' and, by a very simple arrangement, good register secured in two pulls. The main feature of the process consisted in impressing the two 'formes' into one mould, and from that mould producing a perfect electro musicplate. [See Music-Printing, vol. ii. p. 433.]

Nothing could exceed the perfection of the specimens obtained by double printing; there being no joins, each type represented an entire character.

Large 'spaces,' the depth of the stave, divided the various characters from each other, so that they could be set up and spaced out like ordinary type, a great saving of time being thus effected. In perfecting the process up to double-printing an important stage was reached; but the production of equally good work from the perfected plates, in one printing, proved an insurmountable difficulty, the slightest variation in the impression or register being enough to destroy the beauty of the whole. Machine after machine was tried; Mr. John Rennie, the engineer, giving all the assistance in his power, but without success. The process, up to double-printing, was all that could be desired, as far as appearance was concerned, but was too expensive for the production of cheap music. Mr. Scheurmann risked and lost all he possessed in resolving to be satisfied with nothing less than the full accomplishment of his patent. Messrs. Henderson & Rait, of Marylebone Lane, both of whom had more or less to do with the working of the patents, exhibited all that then remained of the plant at the Caxton Celebration at South Kensington in 1878. The beautiful punches are almost complete; but most of the matrices have disappeared. Although Mr. Scheurmann's efforts were not fully successful, it is not too much to say that, indirectly, he was the means of many improvements being made in the ordinary music founts during the past thirty years.

[ W. H. ]