Fritz Simrock

Who was Fritz Simrock?

Friedrich August Simrock, better known as Fritz Simrock was a German music publisher who inherited a publishing firm from his grandfather Nikolaus Simrock. Simrock is most noted for publishing most of the music of Johannes Brahms and Antonín Dvořák.

Simrock published almost all of Brahms's pieces from Opus 16 to Opus 120 and was very good friends with Brahms, even going on vacations to Italy with him. Because of Brahms, Simrock took a chance with the young Antonín Dvořák. Simrock generally paid Brahms well for his music, but with Dvořák he was often unwilling to publish orchestral pieces. Simrock was so involved in the lives of prominent musicians that Joseph Joachim came to believe that his wife Amalie was cheating on him with Simrock, and Brahms wrote a famous "lengthy letter" in support of Amalie's innocence, which "was cited in evidence at the [Joachims'] divorce proceedings."