The company Wilhelm Heckel GmbH, founded in 1831 in Wiesbaden, is without doubt one of the oldest workshops for the construction of woodwind-instruments. In those times the founder of the company, Johann Adam Heckel, supervised the production of music instruments of the company Schott in Mainz. There he got to know the musician of the Court of the Dukes of Nassau in Biebrich, Karl Almenräder, with whom he founded the company "ALMENRÄDER und Heckel" in 1831.
				After the death of Almenräder, Johann Adam Heckel was managing the company on his own for the time being and in later times he continued running the company together with his son Wilhelm Heckel. The lively contact with Richard Wagner, who was working in those times in Biebrich on his opus "Meistersinger" gave Heckel the impulse to develop the Heckelphon which is still demanded nowadays. Since then the history of our company has been characterised by innumerable inventions in the sector of woodwind instruments. Johann Adam Heckel was appointed instrument manufacturer of the Court of the Dukes of Nassau in 1845. After his death in 1887, his son Wilhelm Hermann Heckel continued running the company under the name "WILHELM HECKEL BIEBRICH". In those days, the production range of the house Heckel comprised, apart from the bassoons, contrabassoons and Heckelphones also other woodwind instruments such as clarinets, clarins, Heckelphon-clarinets, basset horns, saxophones, flutes, oboes, oboae dŽamores and English horns.
			Until the present days the company Wilhelm Heckel GmbH is a family-owned enterprise. The rich experience of Almenräder and the Heckel family combined with the most recent acoustic and technical findings form the base for the production of Heckel's music instruments.