Music Engraving Studio Paris, Berlin

In April 1991, Clemens Kirchner, museum photographer, entered the abandoned workshop spaces of the Paris Musical Engravers Studio on Kopenhagener Strasse 16, Prenzlauer Berg, Berlin. The rooms looked as if the artisans had just left them, as if they were in the middle of work. In fact, the music engraver Hans-Joachim Paris, who had died on 8 November 1990, had for the most part been working there alone for more than a decade – as probably Berlin's last musical engraver. As he looked out of the window, Clemens Kirchner photographed a 1928 S-Bahn train passing on the Ringbahn (Circle Line), which was still broken up into two sections as a result of the Berlin Wall being built.  

In addition to the documentary images, black and white photos were also taken in which Clemens Kirchner utilised his special detail oriented perspective to capture the atmosphere in the workshop. The pictures make it clear that not much had been renovated in the Paris Music Engraving Studio for a long time and that no preparations had been made for a handover of the business. But the pictures also tell a story about scarcity and extremely hard working conditions. They are certainly evidence of a time in which nothing remained as it was in both West and East Germany in terms of industrial production and the artisanal trades.

Since at least the 15th century, musical notes were no longer just written down, but also printed and duplicated. In addition to simple notation symbols there were also complete notes used in lead typesetting. Engraving notes in copper and other metal plates enabled the printing of one whole sheet at a time. The advent of the lithographic printing of notes made possible a kind of "copying" of sheet music by means of transfer printing for the first time. Since the 18th century - and in the workshop of Hans-Joachim Paris as well - engraving plates were made of soft lead (pewter): this made both engraving and corrections easier.

The company headquarters was at that time in the Pappelallee 27. A bomb hit this location in 1945. The printing house, which Conrad Paris had assigned to his three daughters, was probably liquidated between 1945 and 1950 after the printing presses had been confiscated.

After the death of Konrad Paris in 1954, his brother Rudolf took over the business as the sole proprietor and named it Notenstecherei Rudolf Paris. He had already moved to the factory building at Kopenhagener Straße 16 one year earlier, in 1953: this was the business's last location before being transported to the museum.

Around 1950, there were three other music engraving companies in Berlin, whose employees would end up working for all the different companies depending on the changing work loads and sometimes just worked on a freelance basis. In the 1950s, the music publishing businesses became centralized in West Berlin in the area around Berlin Zoo, Kurfürstenstraße and Savignyplatz. The higher wages being paid there made it increasingly attractive to work in West Berlin.

In 1966, Hans-Joachim Paris completed his master's examination, was entered into the East Berlin Registry of Craftsmen and received a teaching certificate. His only apprentice left the business in 1970 after having completed his training. He was then unable to attract any other apprentices.

The Paris Music Engravers Studio failed to be reproduced in the Deutsches Technikmuseum and ended up being forgotten just like Clemens Kirchner's photographs. It wasn't until twenty-five years later that during an overhaul of a permanent exhibition employees of the museum became aware of the inventory of the Paris Music Engraver Studio in the museum's depot and historical archive.

Some of the objects from the engraving studio have been on display in the permanent printing technology exhibition since 2019.

Clemens Kirchner's photographs were presented in a photo exhibition in 2018. The gradual disappearance of the different craft trades and industrial occupations had already begun in the 1960s. In the last few decades, the velocity and dynamism of this process has significantly increased in the coarse of the digital transformation. The Deutsches Technikmuseum keeps our intangible cultural heritage alive – in this case as exemplified by historically important printing techniques. Those techniques are a key to understanding our rich typographic heritage as well as all the cultural assets that have been handed down to us.