It was Protestant Johann Jakob Lotter (1683-1738) who founded a printing firm in Augsburg and in 1705 started to print sheet music. His success doubtless reached its peak when he printed Johann Valentin Rathgeber's 'Ohrenvergnuegenden und gemuethsergoetzenden Tafelconfects' with his new technology.

In 1747, his son, Johann Jakob Senior (1726-1804), took over the business on Maximilianstrasse. Under the management of Lotter's son the publishing house became highly esteemed in Southern Germany and Austria with regard to Catholic church music as well as educational music literature. He also published many of Leopold Mozart's pieces and the two men remained friends throughout their lifetime. For that reason Lotter also went to see Leopold in Salzburg. With the help of Leopold, Lotter was able to meet people for business reasons in Hungary and Slovakia.

Lotter and Mozart also wrote letters to each other frequently (the only letters which still exist were written by Leopold during a very short period of time). When Mozart came to Augsburg in September 1755, he did not want to stay with his brothers and sisters. In a letter to Lotter he explained why that was. 'Not only my two brothers, but also my two sisters are now married. There is therefore surely no spare bed apart from that of the maidservant.' Lotter offered to put Mozart up, and Leopold accepted.

On February 9, 1756 Leopold told his friend from Augsburg about the birth of his son Wolfgang Amadeus. '…by the way, on January 27, at 8 pm, my wife gave birth to our son. His name is Joannes Christostomus Wolfgang Gottlieb.' This letter is of great importance, because it is one of the first notes on Wolfgang Amadeus.

Today, the letter belongs to Augsburg's Mozart Memorial Museum. Also in 1756 Johann Jakob Lotter published Leopold Moart's essay 'Versuch einer gruendlichen Violinschule' (Essay on the fundamentals of violin playing), and together they tried to sell the piece, which is considered to be one of the most important guides to learning how to play the violin of that time. There were several editions of it, and even during Leopold's lifetime it was published in different languages.
(R.W.)