Petr Iurgenson

Born July 5 (17), 1836, in Tallinn; died Dec. 20, 1903 (Jan. 2, 1904), in Moscow. Russian music publisher.

Iurgenson was an engraver and salesman at F. T. Stellovskii’s music publishing house from 1855 to 1859, when he became manager of the sheet music department of K. Shil’bakh’s firm in Moscow. In 1861 he opened his own music publishing house; the largest in Russia, it had a branch in Leipzig. Iurgenson was the first in Russia to publish complete collections of the piano works of Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Chopin, and Schumann; he was the principal publisher of the works of such Russian composers as Tchaikovsky and A. S. Arenskii. He took part in the activities of the Russian Society of Music and in 1875 became a director of its Moscow division. After Iurgenson’s death the firm passed to his sons; in 1918 the State Music Publishing House was formed from it.