Karl Klindworth

Karl Klindworth (25 September 1830 – 27 July 1916) was a German composer, virtuoso pianist, conductor, violinist and music publisher. He was one of Franz Liszt's pupils and later one of his closest disciples and friends, being also on friendly terms with composer Richard Wagner, of whom he was an admirer. He was highly praised by fellow musicians, including Wagner himself and Edward Dannreuther. Among his pupils were Hans von Bülow, Georgy Catoire, and Ethelbert Nevin.

Klindworth was born in Hanover in 1830 as the son of Carl August Klindworth and Dorothea Wilhelmine (1800–1853), née Lamminger, daughter of court printer Johann Thomas Lamminger (1757–1805). He was the nephew of politician and State Council Georg Klindworth and clockmaker Karl Friedrich Felix Klindworth (1788–1851).

As a child, the young Klindworth received violin lessons and taught himself to play the piano. As he was not accepted as violin pupil of Louis Spohr, he then joined a traveling theater company as a successful violinist and conductor when he was only 17. In 1850 he took over the leadership of the Neue Liedertafel in Hanover. In the summer of 1852 Klindworth went to Weimar where he took piano lessons with Franz Liszt and was soon one of his closest disciples and friends. He also became on friendly terms with Richard Wagner.

In 1854 Klindworth went to London, where he remained for fourteen years, studying, teaching and occasionally appearing in public. From London Klindworth went to Moscow in 1868, following Nikolai Rubinstein's invitation to take up the position of professor of pianoforte at the Moscow Conservatory, where he first met Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky as professor of harmony. While in Russia he completed his pianoforte arrangements for Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen, which he had commenced during Wagner's visit to England in 1855, Beethoven's sonatas and also his critical edition of Frédéric Chopin's works. He then became conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic in 1882, in association with Joseph Joachim and Franz Wüllner, being also the conductor of the Berlin Wagner Society. At this time, he established the Klindworths Musikschule, which later became the Klindworth-Scharwenka Conservatory.

Klindworth remained in Berlin until 1893, when he retired to Potsdam, practicing as a teacher. He earned his great reputation as an editor of musical works, having re-orchestrated Chopin's second piano concerto, adopted and raised Winifred Williams to be a perfect "Wagnerite" and made the orchestration of the first movement of Alkan's solo piano concerto, the eighth of the composer's etudes in all the minor keys, though others have since orchestrated all three movements. He died in 1916 in Stolpe, near Oranienburg, aged 85.