page_title: The Music Trades (magazine)
section_title: John Christian Freund
hierarchical_section_title: The Music Trades (magazine) / History / John Christian Freund
caption_attribution_description: English: Milton Weil Music Trades 1926
context_page_description: The Music Trades is a 129-year-old American trade magazine that covers a broad spectrum of music and music commerce, domestically and abroad. The magazine was founded in New York City in 1890 and, since the mid-1970s, has been based in Englewood, New Jersey. The Music Trades is one of the longest-running, without interruption, trade publications in the world. The May 2020 issue — Vol. 168, No. 4 — is approximately the three thousand and eighty-fifth issue. A controlling ownership over the last 90 years — seventy percent of the publication's total age — has been held by three generations of the Majeski family, making it among the few current publications of any ilk that has been closely held by a single family for as long a period.
context_section_description: Freund, who matriculated in 1868 at Exeter College, Oxford but left after three years without a degree, had first been a playwright and actor.  Freund emigrated to New York in 1871.  In 1875, he founded The Music Trade Review, a fortnightly publication that he later renamed The Musical and Dramatic Times and Music Trade Review.  The publication ran for about 2 years.  In 1878, Freund founded the Musical Times, which soon changed to Musical and Dramatic Times.  On January 7, 1882, Freund launched a weekly magazine, Music: A Review (Vol., No. 1), which contained an insert called The Music Trade. Sometime on or before July 8, 1882, Freund changed the name to Music and Drama, supplemented by Freund's Daily Music and Drama.  Music and Drama evolved into the weekly publication, The Music Trades.
  In 1884, Freund, with John Travis Quigg (1839–1893), founded The American Musician, which ran until 1891 and became the official publication of the National League of Musicians, the forerunner of the American Federation of Musicians.  Before founding the American Musician, Henry Cood Watson (1818–1875) began in 1864 the publication Watson's Art Journal, devoted to music criticism and trade.  Watson died in 1875 and his Journal was taken over by his pupil, William M. Thoms, who improved it, renamed it American Art Journal, edited it until his retirement in 1906, then, upon his retirement, merged it with the American Musician.
  Around 1895, Freund's younger brother, Harry Edward Freund (1863–1950), was editor of Musical Weekly, which continued as a weekly with a new name, beginning January 1896, as The Musical Age.  The publication was aimed at piano dealers.
caption: Milton Weil, 1926 (photo courtesy of The Music Trades Corporation)
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