Rudolf Buck (* 18 May 1866 in Burgsteinfurt, Westphalia; † 12 May 1952 in Tübingen) was a German composer.
Born in Burgsteinfurt, Rudolf Buck received his education at the Sondershausen Music School, in Cologne and at the Stern'sche Conservatory in Berlin. Buck was subsequently employed as a music teacher and critic for the "Berliner Neueste Nachrichten" and the "Allgemeine Musikzeitung". In 1906 Buck followed a call to the city administration of the international branch in Shanghai as Kapellmeister. Appointed professor in 1910, Rudolf Buck brought pieces by Ludwig van Beethoven, Joseph Haydn, Richard Wagner, Peter Tchaikovsky and Edward Elgar to the Shanghai stages for the first time in this function, and in 1919 he was expelled from China.
Buck settled in Tübingen in 1921 and became his own publisher there in 1925. Buck died in 1952 a few days before he was 86 years old in Tübingen. Rudolf Buck's compositional work consists primarily of incidental music for plays, including Gevatter Tod, premiered in 1900, and choral movements. In 1926 his guide to male choir literature was published by Wilhelm-Limpert-Verlag.
