G. Henle Verlag Case Study

G. Henle Verlag is a German publishing house specialised in preservation through publication of the original urtext editions of sheet music. An urtext is the original edition of a composition as penned by the composer, before revisions and corrections have been made. The company has been publishing these valuable documents since 1948, and has an international reputation.

G. Henle Verlag worked with cultural tech studio, Amphio to launch the Henle Library Application for iPad, and Tengio were entrusted to bring the same functionality to Android. Working in close collaboration with the Amphio and Henle teams, Tengio ensured that none of the core features or experience offered by the iPad was lost when crafting the app around Android’s best practise guidelines.

When Amphio and Henle approached Tengio they were looking for an Android Development company able to meet the high standard of work that Henle’s customers have come to expect, consistent with the product Amphio had delivered in the iPad application.

Their brief specified the following key features:

• An application designed for Music Professionals, which may be used in a commercial environment, therefore stability and ease of use is a must.
• A store to browse and buy urtext. Translations and Support for countries in the Far East. A freemium model with in app purchases for a Global Roll out including countries without Google’s in app purchases.
• A searchable library for urtext purchased by professionals using the application.
• A Score viewer, with the ability edit the score with text, drawings or symbols, to print score and integration with professional or semi-professional Bluetooth foot pads.

Search and Buy

Tengio turned Henle’s expansive collections of urtext into an easily navigable tool. Music professionals can search and buy from hundreds of urtext manuscripts offered by Henle. They can filter by composer, instrument, period or difficulty and buy as collections or a single urtext. Tengio also ensured that the app was compatible with markets worldwide; the Far East is an important market to Henle, the app was developed from ground up with language localizations supporting an array of languages and using Stripe as an alternative payment solution in countries where Google Play’s in app payments weren’t supported, such as China for example.

Score Viewer

Tengio built a flexible Score viewer that music professionals will enjoy using, which offers flexibility that no other application on the Google Play Store offers. The score viewer enables professionals to change stave spacing, stave margins, background colours, enable or disable fingerings as well as offers the professional the ability to add or modify the score with notes all in a very fluid experience. Music professionals can also print out scores and use accessories such as Bluetooth pedals to control the score. The score page also offers professionals a metronome and the ability to record their performances.

The unique challenge of this project was to rebuild an existing app for Android’s different hardware and operating system, keeping the same look, feel, functionality and quality. This is a task Tengio approach as seriously as building a piece of software from scratch, and we are pleased with the result. This app is available for download on the Google Play Store for all music lovers.