The company came into being on 1 December 1800 when the Viennese composer Franz Anton Hoffmeister (1754–1812) and the local organist Ambrosius Kühnel (1770–1813) opened a concern in Leipzig known as the "Bureau de Musique."

Kühnel continued publishing new works, adding those of composers Daniel Gottlob Türk, Václav Tomášek, and Louis Spohr, all of whom went on to have a long relationship with the firm.

Abraham employed many of the improvements to music printing that were introduced by the Leipzig engraver Gottlieb Röder, and launched the "Edition Peters" imprint in 1867.

Abraham's successor was his nephew, Henri Hinrichsen, who added works of Mahler, Pfitzner, Reger, Schoenberg, and Hugo Wolf.

The works of Richard Strauss that were originally issued by Joseph Aibl (later Universal Edition) were acquired by Hinrichsen for Peters in 1932.

During the communist era, Peters Leipzig issued contemporary works of composers including Paul Dessau and Hanns Eisler, along with those of Soviet composers including Khachaturian and Shostakovich in addition to a number of urtext editions of works by Beethoven, Chopin, Fauré, Mahler, Scriabin, Vivaldi and others.

Since the late 1960s the publisher also developed an internationally performed new music line, with composers such as Friedrich Goldmann and Georg Katzer.