As younger employees under their fathers and then as leaders of the company, the succeeding Ricordis made great strides in establishing publishing relationships with opera houses outside of Milan, including La Fenice in Venice and Teatro San Carlo in Naples.

[2] In the 20th century, the company's expansion continued with acquisitions and new branches, which included those in New York (1911), São Paulo (1927), Toronto (1954), Sydney (1956), and Mexico City (1958).

[3] In its early days, the company established itself under the portico of the Palazzo della Ragione and then close to the La Scala opera house after 1844, eventually moving to its present location on the via Berchet.

[4] The 1814 catalogue included mostly piano arrangements of operatic tunes and some individual numbers as well as pieces for guitars, but Macnutt notes the most important single inclusion as being the complete vocal score of Simon Mayr's 1806 opera, Adelasia ed Aleramo,[3] which was regularly performed at La Scala until 1820.

"[6] It was through the gradual accession to the rights to control La Scala's archives, as well as subsequently-produced operas, that he was able to bypass the limitations on publishing full scores, and—as Gossett notes—"not be its employee but a private entrepreneur from whom theatres rented materials".

As Rossini's operas gave way to those of Bellini, the rise of Donizetti followed until his death, and then the preeminence of Verdi, the position of each composer was strengthened by this growing strategy.

[8] With the nickname Jules Burgmein, Giulio Ricordi contributed a very great deal to the prestige of the Casa Ricordi as it also produced several magazines (La gazzetta musicale, Musica e musicisti and Ars et labor), and various other once famous publications (La biblioteca del pianista, l'Opera Omnia di Frédéric Chopin, L'arte musicale in Italia, Le Sonate di Domenico Scarlatti).

Their relationship began in 1884 with the company's support for the printing of the libretto of the young Puccini's first opera Le villi without charge, when it premiered on 31 May 1884 at the Teatro Dal Verme.

Fellow students from the Milan Conservatory formed a large part of the orchestra, and the performance was enough of a success that Casa Ricordi purchased the opera.

When revised into a two-act version with an intermezzo between the acts, Le villi was performed at La Scala in Milan on 24 January 1885, and the score was published in 1887.

However, it is known that Verdi was unhappy with the elder Tito on occasion over what appeared to be the publisher's "sanctioning, for financial gain, mutilated performances of his works".

In fact, shortly after Rossini's Tancredi had been staged in Venice in 1813, the composer made the acquaintance of Giovanni, who was then starting his business in Milan although still involved with La Scala.

Long after the deaths of Rossini, Bellini, and Donizetti, a variety of changes continued to be made to scores at the behest of people such as conductors who (as Gossett notes), if they "want an extra trombone, it was added, and its origin was soon masked...the entire system encouraged a laissez-faire attitude"....[13] It was not until the late 19th century that the full orchestral scores of these four major composers were published by Ricordi and this "marked the beginning of the modern era of publishing".

This led musicologist Philip Gossett to the view that "by the end of the [19th] century, materials rented by Ricordi were frequently far from the composer's original".

Gossett was involved there until 2005; since then he has been working with music publisher Bärenreiter in Germany, which most recently has produced a critical edition of Maometto II soon to be published[18] The Fondazione Donizetti, in the composer's hometown of Bergamo, has been Ricordi's collaborator in the production of critical editions of his operas[19] under the direction of Professor Roger Parker of King's College in London and Gabriele Dotto, who led Ricordi's editorial department from 1992 to 2001.

[4] Ricordi has also developed a role in the publishing of contemporary music, with a catalogue including the work of Giorgio Battistelli, Luciano Berio, Sylvano Bussotti, Franco Donatoni, Lorenzo Ferrero, Bruno Maderna, Giacomo Manzoni, Kevin Puts, Clara Sinde Ramallal,[24] Nino Rota, Salvatore Sciarrino, Ana Serrano Redonnet,[25] and Fabio Vacchi.

This began in 1984 with the world premiere of Prometeo by Luigi Nono to a libretto by Massimo Cacciari, presented under the musical direction of Claudio Abbado.