Ernst Rudorff

Ernst Rudorff (Berlin, 1840 – Berlin, 1916) was a German conductor, composer, pianist and teacher, and a figure in the Berlin musical scene of the second half of the nineteenth century. He came from a cultured family: his mother, Betty Pistor, had been a friend of Mendelssohn and a pupil of Zelter, and representatives of Romanticism gathered in the family home. Among his ancestors were Johann Friedrich Reichardt and Ludwig Tieck.

He trained with Woldemar Bargiel in piano and composition, with Louis Ries in violin and, briefly, with Clara Schumann, with whom he maintained a lasting friendship. He studied theology and history at the universities of Berlin and Leipzig, and music at the Leipzig Conservatory, where his teachers included Moscheles and Julius Rietz, later completing his training with Reinecke and Hauptmann. He worked in Hamburg as conductor and assistant to Julius Stockhausen and, between 1865 and 1869, taught and conducted at the Cologne Conservatory, where in 1867 he founded a Bach society.

At Joachim's invitation he joined the Berlin Hochschule für Musik as a professor in 1869, remaining there until 1910, and from 1882 he directed its piano and organ class. Between 1880 and 1890 he succeeded Bruch at the head of the Stern Choral Society, and he conducted numerous concerts with the Berlin Philharmonic, as well as an evening concert in Lisbon in 1887. He is reported to have also been a member of the senate of the Royal Academy of Arts.

His compositional style draws above all on Schumann, Mendelssohn, Chopin and, especially, Weber. Although Schumann's influence is initially evident in his piano pieces and songs, he soon developed a language of his own, combining traditional forms with moments of Romantic unpredictability. He rejected empty virtuosity, although his fondness for detail sometimes produced very convoluted melodic lines. As an editor he took part in the Denkmäler Deutscher Tonkunst and prepared editions of Weber, Mozart and Chopin. His legacy today is associated above all with his works in the Romantic context and with his pedagogical and editorial work.