Adolf Bernhard Marx

[1] He began his career studying law at Halle, but also learned musical composition there—a fellow student was the composer Carl Loewe.

Marx's intellectual critiques were appreciated by, amongst others, Beethoven, although they often offended the Berlin establishment, including Carl Friedrich Zelter.

[2] Marx became an intimate of the family of Felix Mendelssohn, who was greatly influenced by Marx's ideas about the representational qualities of music—Marx's influence in the revision of Mendelssohn's overture to 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' (1826) was noted by their mutual friend Eduard Devrient in his memoirs.

The enraged Marx thereupon threw his extensive correspondence with Mendelssohn into the river, and it has therefore been lost forever.

[5] His four-volume textbook on compositional theory, Die Lehre von der musikalischen Komposition, was one of the most influential of the nineteenth century.