The progenitor of Alkor-Edition was the firm Oscar Brandstetter, founded in Leipzig in 1934 for the development of the Critical Bruckner Gesamtausgabe. In 1944 it was renamed Bruckner-Verlag Leipzig. After the War, its headquarters was first moved to Wiesbaden until managing director Fritz Oeser found it a permanent home in Kassel in 1955. Since that time, Alkor-Edition has been an integral part of the Bärenreiter Group under the direction of Barbara Scheuch-Vötterle.

In addition to distributing the works of its own imprint, Alkor-Edition serves as the distributing agency for the performance materials of Bärenreiter-Verlag and several other affiliated companies. In this capacity, it administers the use of the orchestral and operatic repertory which includes the new critical editions of the standard repertory from Bach and Handel through Schubert and Berlioz to Johann Strauss. Among the 20th-century masters in the catalogue are Jean Barraqué, Ernst Krenek and Bohuslav Martinu , and the younger generation includes such names as George Lopez, Matthias Pintscher, Thomas Daniel Schlee, and Manfred Trojahn.