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This was a Leipzig firm active in music publishing for the last 20 years of the 19th century.
In 1843 Albert Henry Payne (1812-1902) an English engraver and artist took over the English Art Institute (Englischer Kunstanstalt) in Leipzig which had been founded by Ephraim Tixtor, and became its sole owner in 1846, changing the name to “Payne-Verlag”. He soon added a book and music store, a picture engraving and a music engraving business. Payne was a skilled inventor, and perfected a color lithograph machine in 1878. The main products were prints (reproductions of paintings or original drawings), illustrated family magazines and calendars. In addition there were a few musical items: Payne's music album was published in 1856 and 1858, with many contemporary salon-pieces (songs and piano pieces) in each volume, in which the interest was more in the illustrations than the music.
Finally in 1886 A. Paynes Musikverlag was started, of which the most famous (in fact according to HMB the only) series was Payne's chamber music miniature scores (kleine Partitur-Ausgabe). However, this series was soon sold to Eulenberg (1892) who combined it with E. Donajowski’s Miniature Scores (1894) to start its long-running yellow-covered miniature score series. This new format was very successful, and 200 works were published in the first 15 years. Payne's name remained in use for chamber works, while orchestral works were branded Eulenburg.
The period of active music publishing was only about 20 years, because the 20th century soon saw a radical change in the company, starting with the founder's death in 1902. By 1917 the entire publishing business had been sold to Karl Fr. Pfau Verlag, (Leipzig), although the founder's son Albert Payne was manager (1902-1920). He was followed by Karl Paul Scholze (1920), Friedrich and Karl Maack and Dr. Werner Benndorf (1930s). In 1936 Payne’s joined a publishing group with St. Antonius Buchhandlung M. Gutberlet Esche-Verlag und Volksverlag Eugen Gutberlet, but was finally wound up in 1952.
