Ernst Friedrich Karl Rudorff (born 18 January 1840 in Berlin; died 31 December 1916 in Lichterfelde near Berlin) was a German composer, music educator and conservationist. He received his first piano lessons from his godmother Marie Lichtenstein (1817-1890), a friend of Clara Schumann. From 1852 to 1857 he was a pupil of Woldemar Bargiel and, through his mediation, received some piano lessons from Clara Schumann, with whom he had a lifelong friendship ever since. From 1859 he studied at the Leipzig Conservatory. He also received lessons from Moritz Hauptmann and Carl Reinecke. In 1865 he became a teacher of piano at the Cologne Conservatory, where he founded the Bach-Verein Köln in 1867. In the autumn of 1869 he became professor of piano and organ at the Royal Academy of Music in Berlin-Charlottenburg until his retirement in 1910. In addition to conducting the "Stern'schen Gesangverein" (from 1880), he conducted the first concert of the newly founded Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, later to become the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, on 5 May 1882.
Rudorff's compositional work is indebted to the music of the Romantic period and shows the influence of Robert Schumann, among others. He belongs to the circle of so-called "Berlin academics", which included Friedrich Kiel, Max Bruch and Heinrich von Herzogenberg.
