Rudolph Kündinger was a Russian music educator, pianist, and composer of German origin. He was born in Nördlingen on 2 May 1832.
He studied piano with his father, church composer Georg Wilhelm Kündinger, who worked as a cantor and music director in Nördlingen and Nuremberg. He studied harmony and counterpoint with Nuremberg music director Ernst Blumröder.
Kündinger moved to Russia in 1850 and spent the rest of his life there. He performed occasionally as a pianist, including at concerts of the Imperial Russian Musical Society, but devoted most of his career to teaching. He first taught in the family of the Barons Fitinhof. Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky studied with him from 1855 to 1858 and later credited Kündinger with helping him recognize his musical vocation.
In 1860, Kündinger became music teacher to the children of Grand Duke Konstantin Nikolayevich and began working at the Court Chapel. He was a professor at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory in 1879–1880 and served on the jury of the first Rubinstein Competition in 1890.
His works include a piano trio (1858) and salon pieces for piano, including Preludes for Amateurs, to Serve as Introductions to Pieces to Be Performed. Mikhail Tchaikovsky recorded Kündinger’s recollections of his lessons with Pyotr Tchaikovsky. Kündinger died in Saint Petersburg on 27 January (9 February) 1913 and was buried at the Nikolskoye Cemetery of the Alexander Nevsky Lavra; his grave is considered lost.