Adolph Bernhard Marx (* May 15, 1795 in Halle (Saale); † May 17, 1866 in Berlin) was a German musicologist, music theorist and composer.
Adolph Bernhard Marx, who had studied law, took music lessons in his hometown under Daniel Gottlob Türk and then in Berlin under Carl Friedrich Zelter. In 1827 he received a doctorate in music from the University of Marburg, and in 1830 he became a professor of music at the Friedrich-Wilhelm University in Berlin. In 1832, he bacme the university's music director.
In 1844 he was a founding member of the ''Berliner Tonkünstlerverein'', the first professional association of recording artists on German soil, alongside Franz Commer, custodian of the music department of the Royal Library, and Otto Lange, music critic of the Vossische Zeitung. In 1850, along with Julius Stern and Theodor Kullak, he was one of the founders of the Stern Conservatory, where he taught composition until 1856. One of his students was Nikolai Ivanovich Zaremba.
Marx gained renown primarily as a musicological author, as the author of a biography of Beethoven, of the book Gluck and the Opera, and as an editor of the works of Handel and Bach. A fundamental contribution to music theory is his definitions of the sonata (main) movement form and its components (Die Lehre von der musikalischen Komposition).
In 1824 he founded the ''Berliner Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung'' which he edited until 1830. As early as 1829, he supported Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy's performance of the St. Matthew Passion here with the ''Sing-Akademie zu Berlin'' and vehemently championed Beethoven's late works, which were considered confusingand unplayable in his day.
Marx's own compositions had little success. Among them are the oratorio John the Baptist and the oratorio Moses, which was first performed in Breslau on December 2, 1841, conducted by Johann Theodor Mosewius. It was revived on November 14, 2009 by the Sing-Akademie zu Berlin at the ''Gethsemanekirche in Berlin-Prenzlauer Berg'' and on November 9, 2019 with the ''Gewandhauschor'' under Gregor Meyer in Leipzig. Other works worth mentioning include a cantata, the ''Singspiel Jery und Bätely'' based on a text by Goethe, an organ chorale book, and songs, choruses, and piano works.
