Muzyka

the central Soviet publishing house that issues sheet music and books about music. It operates under the auspices of the State Committee for Publishing, Printing, and the Book Trade of the Council of Ministers of the USSR.

Muzyka was founded in 1918 in Moscow out of the nationalized music publishing firm that had belonged to P. I. Iurgenson and B. I. Iurgenson. The publishing house was part of the Music Section of the People’s Commissariat of Education of the RSFSR between 1918 and 1921, and it operated under the Music Section of Gosizdat (State Publishing House) from 1921 until 1930, when it became an independent publishing house, called Muzgiz. In 1964 Muzgiz merged with the Sovetskii Kompozitor Publishing House to form Muzyka. In 1967 Muzyka was divided into two publishing houses—Muzyka and Sovetskii Kompozitor.

Muzyka issues monographs and collections of essays on musical aesthetics and on the theory and history of music, works on performing music, studies of instruments, and popular-science works about music. It also publishes scores for the musical stage, symphonic and choral works, instrumental and vocal concert pieces, and all kinds of works for professional and amateur bands, folk orchestras, and ensembles of the variety stage. The publishing house also issues textbooks, teaching aids, exercise books for various instruments, anthologies and series for students in music schools, and music books for amateur activities, general schools, and preschools.

The publishing house has an annual pressrun of about 10 million copies. In 1973, Muzyka published 684 titles, including 108 book titles with a pressrun of more than 2 million copies. The publishing house’s library in Moscow contains the USSR’s largest collection of music published by Russian and foreign publishing houses. Muzyka has a branch in Leningrad.