Rudolf Strobl was a Polish pianist and music teacher of German origin. He was born in Opava on April 15, 1831, and died in Warsaw on May 14, 1915.
He received his first music lessons from his father, then studied at the Vienna Conservatory with Robert Volkmann and Joseph Fischhof. He worked as a music teacher in Zhytomyr, where he became close to Joseph Ignatius Kraszewski and learned Polish.
Strobl lived and worked in Warsaw from 1855. He taught at the Warsaw Institute of Music from 1866 to 1896 and served as its director from 1888 to 1891. In 1885, he and Ignatius Krzyzanowski prepared a new edition of Joseph Nowakowski’s Piano School.
His pupils included Ignacy Paderewski, Józef Śliwiński, Aleksander Różycki, Henryk Melcer-Szczawiński, Feliks Konopasek, Henryk Pachulski, Wojciech Gawroński, and Gustaw Lewita. He later taught at Maria Bojanowska’s music school in Lodz until 1912; the school subsequently came under the direction of Helena Kijeńska. Strobl wrote pedagogical piano études and edited similar works by contemporary composers. Józef Wieniawski dedicated his Fantasy for Two Pianos, Op. 42, to Strobl.