Organist, conductor and choirmaster Helmuth Rilling was one of the greatest connoisseurs and interpreters of Johann Sebastian Bach's music in the 20th century. Born in Stuttgart on May 29, 1933 to an organist father and a violinist mother, he received a Protestant religious education which led him to study theology and music in Württemberg, before attending the Musikhochschule in Stuttgart, where he learned organ, composition and conducting. In 1954, before spending a year in Siena at the Accademia Musicale Chigiana with Fernando Germani, he founded his first choir, the Gächinger Kantorei Stuttgart, of which he remained conductor until 2013. In 1957, he became organist and choirmaster at the Stuttgart Gedächtniskirche, before teaching organ at the Spandauer Kirchenmusikschule, where he directed the Spandauer Kantorei in Spandau, Berlin. In 1965, he founded the Bach-Collegium Stuttgart to accompany the Gächinger Kantorei, and received advice from Leonard Bernstein, whom he visited in New York. With his two ensembles, Helmuth Rilling has made numerous recordings for the Vox, Bärenteir-Musicaphon, Nonesuch, Turnabout, Claudius Verlag and Erato labels, including the complete Bach cantatas. Appointed professor at Frankfurt's Hochschule für Musik in 1969, his pupils included Hans-Christoph Rademann, who was to become his successor at the Gächinger Kantorei and the Bach-Collegium Stuttgart. Helmuth Rilling toured extensively with his two ensembles, and in 1970 co-founded the Oregon Bach Festival. In 1981, his authority on Bach's music led him to found the Internationale Bachakademie Stuttgart, a meeting place for specialists and researchers, offering seminars, teaching workshops, masterclasses and concerts. After making hundreds of recordings, most recently for the Hänssler Classic label, Helmuth Rilling became involved in organizing other festivals, before stepping down as director of his two ensembles in 2013, and retiring from the stage in 2018. He died in Leonberg on February 11, 2026, at the age of 92.
