Johann Traeg (20 January 1747 – 5 September 1805)[1] was a German music copyist and publisher who flourished in Vienna in the late 18th century.
[3] As Jones as elsewhere pointed out, what set Traeg apart from most professional copyists was his assiduous compilation of what became a vast library of music from which he could offer copies for sale.
In 1799, Traeg's firm created a catalog listing all the items that were available for purchase at the time, indicating which were obtainable in print and which in custom hand-copy.
The catalogs have been re-published in modern times as a resource for historical musicology, along with the set of advertisements that Traeg took out in the newspaper Wiener Zeitung.
Traeg was ... in possession of an exceptionally wide variety of works by Mozart, and he was often able to advertise them in the Wiener Zeitung at quite an early date, often not long after the composer finished them or received them from [his childhood home in] Salzburg.
[15] Cliff Eisen suggests that following Mozart's death (5 December 1791), Traeg may have been involved in important dealings with his widow Constanze.
At the time Constanze was faced with a very serious financial situation in light of having two children, the debts her husband left, and (at first) no pension income.
As early as April 1792 Traeg offered for sale copies of 14 Mozart symphonies; this number was augmented to 15 in August, at which time Traeg also offered an enormous collection of Masses, concertos for piano, violin and horn, cassations, partitas for winds, a horn quintet, the duos for violin and viola, more than 30 dances, and 'various' arias, in score, with Italian texts.
[17] Edge spells out what may have been happening, and partially endorses Eisen's hypothesis: "One can easily imagine that Constanze, suddenly faced with the prospect of supporting herself and two children while attempting to sort out her deceased husband's chaotic finances, might quickly have decided to sell some of what seemed to her the less obviously important items from her husband's collection in order to raise ready cash.
"[18] Later on, Constanze's dealings with Traeg were less substantial; once her financial situation had become more secure she dealt more often with out-of-town publishers such as Breitkopf & Härtel and Johann André.