Josef Hauser

The Founder

Josef Hauser grew up in Burghausen as the son of an innkeeper. He trained both as a merchant and a carpenter while attending grammar school, and during that time he also studied under a well-regarded zither teacher of the era. He soon began composing his own zither pieces and went on to work as both a teacher and a performing virtuoso of the instrument.

Living near Munich in Erding, he rented an old barn and built his very first zither there. Once it was finished, he brought it to Munich and requested an audience at the residence of Duke Maximilian of Bavaria, a noted patron of the zither. The Duke welcomed him warmly, and the two reportedly spent the whole night playing the new instrument together. Josef left the next day with a letter of recommendation, which set him on the path to becoming a professional instrument maker. He took great pride in calling himself a zither builder, and beyond zithers he also produced guitars, mandolins, violins, and lutes.

That same year, he founded his own music publishing house so he could print his own folk compositions — he's credited with writing more than 400 pieces. After marrying the daughter of a potter, he relocated his workshop and publishing business to Munich. His work was recognized in 1898, when he received a top honor at a major music exhibition in Berlin, and Duke Maximilian personally awarded him a medal for art and science.

Hermann Hauser I

Handicraft for Manufacturing Instruments — Munich, Bayerstraße 33 / Müllerstraße 8, Reisbach

Josef's son, Hermann Hauser I, would go on to become one of the most respected luthiers in the world. He learned the craft in his father's workshop and eventually took it over, while his father continued running the publishing side of the business. Hermann focused mainly on guitars and lutes, though he kept making zithers as well. As part of the broader guitar revival movement taking hold in Bavaria, he built an impressive range of instruments — including Vienna- and Munich-style guitars in many variations — all crafted to an exceptional standard. His Terz, Prim, and especially rare Quintbass guitars are still considered outstanding, with a sound that remains hard to match. Drawing on his skill, he also developed and patented technical improvements to soundboard and neck-body joint construction.

Around the turn of the 20th century, Spanish guitar virtuosos Miguel Llobet and Andrés Segovia discovered his work — an encounter often described as a pivotal moment in guitar history.

The Torres guitar's rise as the model for modern concert guitars owes a great deal to that meeting between the Spanish virtuosos and the Munich luthier. — Karl Huber

Much like Antonio de Torres before him, Hermann Hauser I left a lasting mark on generations of luthiers who followed, and his instruments were sought after by many leading performers. The family's guest book documents his close relationships with numerous guitarists, and several instrument models still bear their names — the Llobet, Segovia, and Bream models among them.

The guitar Andrés Segovia played from 1937 to 1970 was made by Hermann Hauser I and can now be seen at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. After Allied bombing raids badly damaged the family's property in Munich during the war, Hermann Hauser I relocated the workshop to Reisbach an der Vils in Lower Bavaria.

Hermann Hauser II

Handicraft for Manufacturing Instruments — Munich, Bayerstraße 33 / Müllerstraße 8, Reisbach

After completing a four-year apprenticeship at the state violin-making school in Mittenwald, Hermann Hauser II joined his father's workshop in 1930. For more than two decades the two worked side by side, with every instrument still bearing Hermann Hauser I's signature during that period. It wasn't until October 1952, when Hermann Hauser II formally took over the business, that guitars began carrying his own signature — a practice that continued until 1983. His first signed instrument was number 500, and his final one is believed to be number 1050.

Hermann Hauser II built on his father's classical designs, refining specific shapes through close collaboration with performing guitarists — both those who had already played his father's instruments and artists of his own generation. That blend of inherited tradition and personal innovation produced some remarkable advancements. Like his father, he valued genuine friendships with the musicians he worked with; Andrés Segovia, Julian Bream, Django Reinhardt, and others spoke highly of both his hospitality and his instruments.

One standout guitar, built in 1957, was played by Julian Bream from 1959 to 1963. Bream used it to record works by Albéniz, Scarlatti, Berkeley, Rodrigo, Frescobaldi, Ravel, and Roussel in 1960 — a recording that appears on the album The Art of Julian Bream.

Hermann Hauser III

Hermann Hauser Guitars, Reisbach

The current generation continues the family philosophy first articulated by Hermann Hauser I: build only a limited number of instruments so that each one can be fully vouched for, and work only with a small circle of dedicated artists.

Starting in 1974, Hermann Hauser III began building guitars alongside his father in the same workshop, using his own numbering system and signature. Andrés Segovia praised the extraordinary tone of his instruments, and guitarist Pepe Romero has called his Hauser guitar the purest-sounding classical guitar he owns. For Hermann Hauser III, a guitar's sound comes down to more than technique — like his forebears, he builds close, personal relationships with the artists he works with, tailoring neck profiles, fingerboards, and string lengths to each musician's needs and preferred tonal character after careful study of how they play.

Much of his approach is grounded in studying historical instruments, particularly those made by earlier generations of his own family — work that has led both to careful restorations of historic guitars and to new limited-edition designs. He has received top honors from professional organizations and wide recognition across the international guitar community. He attributes his success to a combination of instinct for how guitarists play, an eye for form and aesthetics, genuine craftsmanship in working with wood, a musical ear for tone, and above all, a deep love of the craft.

Each guitar takes him between 150 and 240 hours to build, and the Reisbach workshop produces a maximum of 17 instruments a year. Because of that, prospective owners face a waiting list of around five years — but as Andrés Segovia once wrote in the family's guest book, the result is a friend for the rest of your life.