Ernst Rudorff

Ernst Friedrich Karl Rudorff (January 18, 1840 – December 31, 1916) was a German composer and music teacher, also a founder of the nature protection movement “Heimatschutz”. Biography Born in Berlin, Rudorff studied piano under Woldemar Bargiel from 1852 to 1857 before enrolling at the Leipzig Conservatory in 1859, where he studied under Ignaz Moscheles, Louis Plaidy, and Julius Rietz. He was also a private pupil of Moritz Hauptmann and Carl Reinecke. In 1865 he became a piano teacher at the Cologne Conservatory, and he founded the Bach-Verein Köln in 1867. He moved to Berlin in 1869, and for four decades, to his retirement in 1910, was the head piano teacher at the Berlin Hochschule. He also conducted the Stern Gesangverein from 1880 to 1890, succeeding Max Bruch. His collection of music manuscripts, scores, and correspondence is one of the largest and most important such collections still held in private hands. It includes autographs by Bach, Beethoven, Bruch, Clementi, Dussek, Gluck, Handel, Mendelssohn, Mozart, and Salieri. His students included Fridtjof Backer-Grøndahl, Wilhelm Berger, Leo Blech, Gerard von Brucken Fock, Leopold Godowsky, Elsie Hall, Siegfried Ochs, Alexandre