The Hansen company music publishing firm was founded by Jens Wilhelm Hansen (1821–1904) in 1853 when he began publishing music from his home, but was not officially incorporated until 1857 when he opened a music shop and subscription library in
Copenhagen. It was continuously owned and operated by his descendants until the majority of its business was sold to the
Music Sales Corporation (now Wise Music Group) in November 1988. The Hansen family maintains the
Norsk Musikforlag imprint as the only portion of their company that they did not sell. Family members who took leadership roles of the firm include: Asger Wilhelm Hansen (1889–1976), Svend Wilhelm Hansen (1890–1960), Hanne Wilhelm Hansen (b 1927), and Lone Wilhelm Hansen (1929–1994). Hansen gained a dominant position in music publishing in
Denmark in 1879 when it acquired the music publishers
C.C. Løse (founded 1802) and
Horneman & Erslev (founded 1846); effectively giving their business a
monopoly. In 1880 the company moved into the former Lose headquarters at Gothersgade 11 and remained there for the rest of its history. In 1887 the firm expanded into Germany; establishing a branch in
Leipzig that was active until
World War II forced it to close. In 1908 the firm jointly purchased the
Carl Warmuth music publishing house with the
Brødrene Hals company; and Carl Warmuth and Brødrene Hals merged to form Norsk Musikforlag. The Hansen family bought complete control of Norsk Musikforlag in 1910. In 1915 Hansen founded the Swedish music publishing house in Stockholm. In 1951 the company established the Frankfurt music publishing house
Wilhelmiana Musikverlag, and in 1957 they founded the London music publishing house . They opened a branch in
Helsinki, Finland in 1986. Some composers who were clientele of Hansen included
Hugo Alfvén,
Sven-Erik Bäck,
Agathe Backer Grøndahl,
Antonio Bibalo,
Johan Halvorsen,
Emil Hartmann,
Peter Heise,
Vagn Holmboe,
Arthur Honegger,
Yrjö Kilpinen,
Witold Lutosławski,
Carl Nielsen,
Selim Palmgren,
Francis Poulenc,
Knudåge Riisager,
Hilding Rosenberg,
Arnold Schoenberg,
Jean Sibelius,
Christian Sinding,
Emil Sjögren,
Igor Stravinsky,
Wilhelm Stenhammar,
Johan Svendsen, and . They also published scholarly works by
Knud Jeppesen among others. ==References==