50th anniversary of WERGO – an interview with Peter Hanser-Strecker

• This May, WERGO, the leading label for contemporary music, celebrates its 50th anniversary. Which were the reasons back then for Schott to take over the label from Werner Goldschmidt?

There was, on the one hand, the fascination of the medium for new music which was new to us as a publishing house. On the other hand, the recording business was an important addition to our publishing programme and thus an expansion of our company's value added.

• Have you been successful? Do you think that your intentions have been accomplished?

As a rule, you are only successful in publishing if you are willing to make every effort to support your composers and artists in a consistent and persistent manner. Both the publishing house and WERGO have managed to do just that. Without WERGO, many important works would not be found in the media.

• In recent years, the CD market has been thoroughly shaken. Authorized and unauthorized downloads, the dramatic sales decline in the record industry and economic crises have hit the major labels very hard. Has this also affected the independent labels? How did WERGO respond to these developments?

The paradigm shift in the media sector has confronted all labels with the known interferences. However, WERGO, being a specialist label, has been able to hold its own in its niche. We would be well-advised, though, to respond to the signs of the times with all new possibilities of the media. To download texts and sounds in high quality is a new challenge that we are happy to meet in this anniversary year.

• The conditions of production today are different from those prevailing in the past 50 years. How is it possible to still release lavish productions on CD?

Whereas we had to rely on the ensembles, concert halls and recording technique of the broadcasting companies in the past, this is no longer the case today. Nevertheless, we can still realize excellent major productions with a lot of broadcasting companies.
Due to the fact that the technical recording conditions are much more favourable and better today and that there still are patrons, we can realize more and more special and especially costly productions with free ensembles.

• Contemporary music – that means today a vast number of genres and different aesthetic approaches. Can such a variety actually be represented? How does WERGO deal with it?

What is so fascinating about the work of WERGO since its early beginnings is the constantly increasing variety and inexhaustible supply of musical creativity. If the sales channels were larger and better, we would even be able to increase the number of our releases. But: We like to confine ourselves to the essentials.

• What is WERGO standing for today – and tomorrow?

For tradition and progress, for things proven and things unheard-of, for the courageous and groundbreaking.