Jensen, Adolf E. (1837-1879): The Complete Music Autographs in the BSB

Adolf Jensen was a German composer, pianist and music educator. Born in Königsberg, he studied with Louis Ehlert and Friedrich Marpurg in Berlin. Franz Liszt encouraged his pianistic talent. Afterwards Jensen worked as a music teacher in Russia and as Kapellmeister in Posen, Bromberg and Copenhagen. In 1860 he returned to Königsberg as second director of the Music Academy, taught briefly as professor for piano in Berlin in 1867, before he settled in Dresden to devote himself entirely to composition. From 1869 on he became seriously ill with lung disease, spent the last years of his life in various health resorts and died in 1879 at the age of only 42 in Baden-Baden. Jensen composed mainly song settings (176 works) and piano works. His subtle compositions were initially in the tradition of Robert Schumann, but in his later works he developed an unmistakable style of his own. In 1981, the BSB was able to acquire the remaining part of Adolf Jensen's compositional bequest. In addition to Jensen's own compositions, it contains his cadenzas to Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's Piano Concerto in D Major K. 537, an interesting testimony to Mozart's reception in the mid-19th century.