Viennese music dealer, music publisher, and concert management agency.

Career Summary

Hugo Knepler was the proprietor of a sheet music retail company 1905‒07, and thereafter managing director of the sheet music retailer and concert agency Albert J. Gutmann, and after Gutmann's death the firm's proprietor. Between 1916 and 1927 he took over also the proprietorship of his brother Paul's publishing house, Verlag Paul Knepler (Wallishauser Buchhandlung).

In 1939 he emigrated to France, but fell into German hands, was deported to Auschwitz on April 13, 1944, where he died.

Knepler and Schenker

There is no known correspondence or direct contact between the two men. His name is invoked several times in correspondence between Schenker and Emil Hertzka (Universal Edition) when Schenker was attempting to form a protective organization of composers and performers. In one letter (WSLB 133, August 26, 1912) Schenker remarks that he was someone “who considers the time has come for even musicians at last to unite to protect their interests against those of Knepler, perhaps even against journalists.” He thus saw Knepler as, in his agency business, taking advantage of musicians.

Knepler is mentioned by Angi Elias in a letter to Schenker (OC 52/631, July 13, 1925) as having mistakenly supplied her with two subscriptions to Der Tonwille .

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