thumb|Portrait of Adolf von Henselt, with scrap of music
thumb|Portrait of Adolf Henselt, composer (1814-1889), before 1889. Archivio Storico Ricordi.
Georg Martin Adolf von Henselt (9 May 181410 October 1889) was a German composer and virtuoso pianist.
thumb|Original Church Record showing Henselt's birth as 9 May 1814
Life
Henselt was born at Schwabach, in Bavaria. At the age of three he began to learn the violin, and at five the piano under Josepha von Fladt (1778–1843), who had trained in composition with Franz Danzi, Abbé (George Joseph) Vogler, Joseph Graetz and studied piano with Franz Lauska (who later coached Meyerbeer, Felix and Fanny Mendelssohn). His concert debut was at the Odeon in Munich, where he played the opening Allegro to one of Mozart's C major concertos, a free fantasy with variations on a theme from Weber's Der Freischütz, and a rondo by Kalkbrenner. It was through Fladt's influence with King Ludwig I of Bavaria that Henselt was provided the financial means to undertake further study with Johann Nepomuk Hummel in Weimar in 1832 for some months. Later that year, he went to Vienna, where, besides studying composition under Simon Sechter (the later teacher of Anton Bruckner), he was successful as a concert pianist.
In 1836, to improve his health, he made a prolonged tour through the chief German towns. In 1837, he settled at Breslau, where he had married Rosalie Vogel—but the following year migrated to Saint Petersburg, where previous visits made him welcome. He became court pianist to Alexandra Feodorovna and inspector of musical studies in the Smolny Institute of Noble Maidens, and was ennobled in 1876. Henselt usually spent summer holidays in Germany. Among his many students were Heinrich Ehrlich, Nikolai Zverev, Ingeborg Bronsart von Schellendorf, Alie Lindberg, Vladimir Stasov, , and . In 1852, and again in 1867, he visited England, though in the latter year he made no public appearance. Once he commented on the lengths Henselt took to achieve his famous legato, saying, "I could have had velvet paws like that if I had wanted to." Henselt's influence on the next generation of Russian pianists was immense. Henselt's playing and teaching greatly influenced the Russian school of music, developing from seeds planted by John Field. Sergei Rachmaninoff held him in very great esteem, and considered him one of his most important influences.
He excelled in his own works and in those of Carl Maria von Weber and Frédéric Chopin. His Piano Concerto in F minor, Op. 16 was once frequently played in Europe, and of his many valuable studies, the Étude in F-sharp major Si oiseau j'étais, was very popular. At one time Henselt was second to Anton Rubinstein in the direction of the Saint Petersburg Conservatory.