Henle had received a thorough musical education in his early adolescence. Being an accomplished pianist, he soon recognized that there were scarcely any editions that accurately reproduced the composer's musical text. The majority of them were marred by extraneous and often blatantly wrong accretions from editors and arrangers. Moreover, the printing quality and page layout were frequently poor. This was the status quo when Henle dedicated to launch his far-reaching and portentous publishing venture. Henle received encouragement from, among other people, Wilhelm Furtwängler: "It is extremely commendable, indeed essential, to finally have reliable musical texts as conceived and intended by their authors." The first Urtext volumes issued by the House of Henle were the piano sonatas of Mozart and Schubert's Impromptus and Moments musicaux.

Working with leading musicians and scholars, the House of Henle continuously expanded its Urtext program. Günter Henle also correctly assessed the importance of basic musicological research. As early as the 1950s his publishing house already included complete editions and major reference books among its titles.

In 1979 Günter Henle died in the knowledge that he had built up a world-renowned venture that had transformed the entire landscape of music publishing.

In A twenty-three-member team with offices in Munich, the leading city and cultural capital of Bavaria, ensures that its volumes find more and more satisfied customers throughout the world (75 percent of Henle's publications are exported). Since 1985 Henle has also maintained a subsidiary in the United States:

Henle's Urtext editions are noted for the scholarly accuracy of their text, their clear layout on the page and their razor-sharp printing. The best means of achieving quality of this sort is through Hand-Engraving, for the practised eye of the engraver is still superior to the computer.

Once the engraving has been approved for printing, the publishers make a black-and-white negative offprint to serve as a master for a positive film. The razor-sharp engraving can now be printed by photo-offset.