Ludwig Güttler

Ludwig Güttler earned the nicknames "the Pavarotti of wind instruments" and the "King of Trumpets," yet his renown extends equally to his scholarly research, instructional work, and commitment to Saxon cultural life as to his performances on trumpet and horn. More than 100 recordings document a path that opened in the 1960s.

Music entered his life at age five through lessons on accordion, piano, cello, and flute; the trumpet followed when he turned fourteen. Between 1961 and 1965 he trained at the Hochschule für Musik Leipzig under Armin Männel. After completing his studies he served as principal trumpeter with Halle’s Handel Festival Orchestra and subsequently joined the Dresden Philharmonic, remaining there until 1980. During those years he established three ensembles devoted to 17th- and 18th-century wind repertoire on period instruments: the New Leipziger Bach-Collegium in 1976, the Ludwig Güttler Wind Ensemble in 1978, and Virtuosi Saxoniae in 1985. Once free of orchestral duties he began recording, first for Capriccio and later for Berlin Classics. In 1983 the Deutschen Phonoakademie named him “Discovery of the Year.” He has appeared both as soloist and conductor with all three groups in instrumental and choral repertory and has maintained a long-standing duo partnership with organist Friedrich Kircheis. His ongoing search for overlooked works featuring trumpet, piccolo trumpet, corno da caccia, and other winds has taken him through libraries, archives, and castles across Germany and beyond, steadily enlarging the canon past the familiar output of Vivaldi, Bach, Telemann, and Haydn.

From 1972 to 1990 he held a professorship at the Dresden Hochschule für Musik, taught yearly at the Weimar International Music Seminar, and regularly conducted master classes while serving on competition juries. In 1986 he launched the annual Musikwoche Hitzacker festival, a program of concerts, recitals, workshops, and exhibits, and he has also directed local opera productions. Numerous honors recognize both his artistic achievements and his civic engagement. Possessing a degree in architecture, he played a central role in the restoration of Dresden’s Frauenkirche from 1994 to 2004, an effort that prompted Queen Elizabeth to appoint him an Officer of the Order of the British Empire. His discography stretches from Albinoni to Zelenka. As he neared eighty and pandemic restrictions curtailed his activities, Güttler largely withdrew from public performance while continuing to examine unexplored manuscripts and experiment with his instruments. The two-disc set In allen meinen Taten gathers selections from some of his most valued recordings together with 2022 performances of several cherished chorales, a form to which he has returned repeatedly across his extended career.