Gottwald was born in
Ober Salzbrunn on 20 November 1925. After military service and being a prisoner of war in the United States, he studied voice with
Gerhard Hüsch and choral conducting with
Kurt Thomas. As a choir director, he was initially an assistant to
Marcel Couraud from 1954 to 1958. From 1958 to 1970 he was
cantor at the Paulus-Kirche in Stuttgart, conducting the . Gottwald studied Protestant theology, sociology, and musicology in
Tübingen and
Frankfurt. In 1961 he completed his dissertation on the Renaissance composer
Johannes Ghiselin in Frankfurt. As a musicologist, he edited numerous scholarly catalogues of music manuscripts. In 1960 Gottwald founded the Schola Cantorum Stuttgart, a vocal ensemble of 16 to 18 professional singers, with a repertoire focused on both classical vocal polyphony as well as contemporary music. They performed more than 80 premieres and first performances of choral works. Among the composers who wrote music for the ensemble are
Pierre Boulez,
Brian Ferneyhough,
Vinko Globokar,
Gérard Grisey,
Heinz Holliger,
Mauricio Kagel,
Helmut Lachenmann,
György Ligeti,
Krzysztof Penderecki,
Steve Reich,
Dieter Schnebel, and
Hans Zender. Notably, Gottwald conducted the Schola Cantorum in a performance of Ligeti's
Lux aeterna, which was later used in the
Stanley Kubrick film
2001: A Space Odyssey. Gottwald directed the ensemble until its dissolution in 1990. Gottwald was editor for Neue Musik (contemporary music) for the broadcaster Südfunk Stuttgart from 1967 to 1988. As a composer, Gottwald specialised in "arranging" classical music from different genres for an
a cappella group of up to 16 voices in the style of
György Ligeti. He had the initial idea at a workshop of
Pierre Boulez, "transcribing" Ravel's
Soupir from his
Trois poèmes de Mallarmé similarly to Ligeti's use of voices in
Lux aeterna. In particular, his arrangement of Gustav Mahler's
Rückert song "Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen" for voices (1985) was popularized by Swedish choral conductor
Eric Ericson and has been performed by many leading choirs. Gottwald arranged works by
Alban Berg (
Die Nachtigall),
Hector Berlioz (
Sur les lagunes),
Claude Debussy (
Les Angelus,
Des pas sur la neige),
Franz Liszt (
Zwei Lieder, two songs),
Gustav Mahler (
Drei Lieder, three songs),
Giacomo Puccini,
Maurice Ravel (
Soupir),
Richard Wagner (
Zwei Studien zu "Tristan und Isolde"),
Anton Webern (
Vier frühe Lieder, four early songs), and
Hugo Wolf (four songs including
Auf ein altes Bild and
Der Gärtner), among others. In his arrangements for voices, he borrowed lyrics freely, for example a combination of a French poem by
Rilke with poetry by
Mallarmé in his arrangement of Debussy's prelude for piano
Des pas sur la neige. His adaptations of Wagner and Mahler were praised: "Gottwald has been truly effective at transferring the romantic orchestra onto the choir". His style of arrangement has been termed "re-create them in a magical choral world". In 2009 he received the
Kulturpreis Baden-Württemberg (Cultural Award of
Baden-Württemberg) for his lifetime achievement and in 2012 the
Preis der Europäischen Kirchenmusik of
Schwäbisch Gmünd, for his contributions to sacred music. He was awarded the
Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany in 2014. Gottwald died on 18 January 2023 at age 97. == Recordings ==