The firm was founded by Karl Vötterle (1903–1975) in Augsburg in 1923, and moved to Kassel in 1927, where it still has its headquarters; it also has offices in Basel, London, New York and Prague.
Series include: J. S. Bach (the Neue Bach-Ausgabe, a joint project with the Deutscher Verlag für Musik), Berlioz, Fauré, Gluck, Handel, Janáček, Mozart (Neue Mozart-Ausgabe), Rossini,[2] Saint-Saëns, Schubert (New Schubert Edition), Telemann and others.
Vötterle released the first sheet music (known as Liederblätter) at a time when the great composers of the Classical, Romantic and Modern eras were exclusively represented by traditional publishers in Leipzig (such as Edition Peters) and Mainz (Schott-Verlag).
Focus shifted towards providing complete editions of famous composers such as Bach, Georg Friedrich Händel, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Franz Schubert, making Bärenreiter a leading supplier of sheet music among publishers in the same field.
From the early 1900s through to the 21st century, Bärenreiter's publishing programme has been built upon converting these editions into sheet music suitable for practice and performance.
For instance, the 1930 Quempas (collection of Christmas carols with a current circulation of 3 million copies) has been a cornerstone of the company's success.
New models that followed from the year of 1936 were designed by Manfred Ruetz, built in cooperation with Max Hüller and Rudolf Otto.
By 1945 the Hüller and Otto partnership dissolved and from 1950 Conrad Mollenhauer company, based in Fulda, had taken over instrument production.
Despite this setback, the first volumes of Music in History and the Present (Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart) were published in 1949.
In 1950, Bärenreiter acquired Hinnenthal publishing house and began releasing the "Hortus Musicus" series featuring works from the Renaissance and Baroque eras.
[1] During this period, Offenbach's The Tales of Hoffmann were performed for the first time by Fritz Oeser in the Alkor edition, at the Vienna Volksoper.
In 1977, Franz Schubert's songs were printed in collaboration with G. Henle Verlag, and the first volumes of the complete edition of the works of Czech composer Leoš Janáček were circulated in 1979 as part of a co-production with Supraphon Prague.
In 1994, Bärenreiter published the first volume of the subject section of the second edition of the music encyclopaedia Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart (MGG).
In the same year, Bärenreiter initiated a major new project: the historical-critical edition of all the instrumental works of the French composer Camille Saint-Saëns.
The coronavirus pandemic significantly impacted Bärenreiter Verlag, as the reduction in opera, concert, and choir performances led to a loss of revenue.