Karl Klindworth (25 September 1830 – 27 July 1916) was a German composer, virtuoso pianist, conductor, violinist and music publisher.

[citation needed] As a child, the young Klindworth received violin lessons and taught himself to play the piano.

As he was not accepted as violin pupil of Louis Spohr, he then joined a traveling theater company as a successful violinist and conductor when he was only 17.

In the summer of 1852, Klindworth went to Weimar where he took piano lessons with Franz Liszt and was soon one of his closest disciples and friends.

[3] He earned his great reputation as an editor of musical works, having re-orchestrated Chopin's second piano concerto, adopted and raised Winifred Williams to be a perfect "Wagnerite" and made the orchestration of the first movement of Alkan's solo piano concerto,[4] the eighth of the composer's etudes in all the minor keys, though others have since orchestrated all three movements.