Outstanding Artist and Scholar
The University of Music Mourns the Loss of Its Honorary Senator Prof. Dr. Peter Gülke
The Franz Liszt University of Music Weimar mourns the loss of its alumnus, honorary doctorate recipient, and honorary senator Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. mult. Peter Gülke, who passed away on April 26, 2026, at the age of 91.
“My deepest sympathies go out to his family and all those who were close to him,” says University President Anne-Kathrin Lindig. “His passing is a painful loss for our university community. Peter Gülke was not only an outstanding artist and scholar, but above all an extraordinary human being. His warmth, his openness, and his unpretentious wisdom shaped and inspired us. I personally knew him as a man who, despite his impressive erudition, always remained humble, who listened, encouraged, and treated others with great warmth. His thinking, his work, and his attitude will continue to resonate long after his death.”
A “fireside evening” with Prof. Gülke had actually been planned for Tuesday, April 28, in the reading room of the university library, where he was to speak about conducting as a profession and a calling—at the invitation of the Department of Conducting and Opera répétiteur studies. “We are deeply saddened to learn of his passing,” says conducting professor Ekhart Wycik. “We stand in awe, with great admiration and the highest regard, before the life’s work of a great conducting personality who carried the name of Weimar throughout the world.”
Peter Gülke’s life and work can be described as a journey across boundaries: First, there is the biographical journey from East to West and back again to the East, with Weimar as the starting point and provisional destination, joined by a second crossing of boundaries: the successful dual existence as a musician and musicologist. Born in Weimar in 1934, he studied music at the Franz Liszt University of Music in Weimar. After stops in Rudolstadt, Stendal, Potsdam, Stralsund, and Dresden, he initially became General Music Director of the Staatskapelle Weimar.
In 1975, he made a name for himself as a musicologist—with the book “Monks, Citizens, Minstrels,” now considered a classic, on the music of the European Middle Ages. Peter Gülke did not return to the GDR from a guest performance that took him to Hamburg in 1983. After completing his habilitation at the Technical University of Berlin, the practicing musician found a new creative home in Wuppertal, while the theorist published highly acclaimed studies on Brahms, Bruckner, and Schubert. The list of honors bestowed upon him is long and includes the Ernst von Siemens Music Prize and the Federal Cross of Merit on Ribbon. Most recently, Peter Gülke served as chief conductor of the Brandenburg Symphony Orchestra from 2015 to 2020.
[27 April 2026]