![Theodore Eisfeld](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b4/Theodore_Eisfeld.jpg)
Theodore Eisfeld (April 11, 1816,
Wolfenbüttel
Wolfenbüttel (; nds, Wulfenbüddel) is a town in Lower Saxony, Germany, the administrative capital of Wolfenbüttel District. It is best known as the location of the internationally renowned Herzog August Library and for having the largest ...
,
Duchy of Brunswick
The Duchy of Brunswick (german: Herzogtum Braunschweig) was a historical German state. Its capital was the city of Brunswick ().
It was established as the successor state of the Principality of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel by the Congress of Vienna ...
– 16 September 1882,
Wiesbaden
Wiesbaden () is a city in central western Germany and the capital of the state of Hesse. , it had 290,955 inhabitants, plus approximately 21,000 United States citizens (mostly associated with the United States Army). The Wiesbaden urban area ...
) was a conductor, most notably of the
New York Philharmonic Society
The New York Philharmonic, officially the Philharmonic-Symphony Society of New York, Inc., globally known as New York Philharmonic Orchestra (NYPO) or New York Philharmonic-Symphony Orchestra, is a symphony orchestra based in New York City. It is ...
, which became the New York Philharmonic.
Biography
Eisfeld's chief instructor in musical composition was
Carl Gottlieb Reissiger
Carl Gottlieb Reißiger (also ''Karl Reissiger'', ''Carl Reissiger'', ''Karl Reißiger'') (31 January 1798 – 7 November 1859) was a German Kapellmeister and composer.
Biography
Born in Belzig, Reissiger attended the Thomasschule zu Leipzig an ...
, of
Dresden
Dresden (, ; Upper Saxon: ''Dräsdn''; wen, label= Upper Sorbian, Drježdźany) is the capital city of the German state of Saxony and its second most populous city, after Leipzig. It is the 12th most populous city of Germany, the fourth ...
. Between 1839 and 1843 he served as
Kapellmeister of the Court Theatre at Wiesbaden.
[Thomas (1905), p. 35] He came to New York in 1848, and in 1849 was the first man chosen by the New York Philharmonic Society to be sole conductor for an entire season (prior to this time it had been customary for several musicians to share the conducting duties).
He began the custom of giving an annual Christmas performance of
Handel's ''
Messiah
In Abrahamic religions, a messiah or messias (; ,
; ,
; ) is a saviour or liberator of a group of people. The concepts of '' mashiach'', messianism, and of a Messianic Age originated in Judaism, and in the Hebrew Bible, in which a ''mashiach ...
''. He also introduced the first regular concerts of chamber music in New York.
From 1849 through the 1865/1866 season, when he resigned, Eisfeld often served as conductor of the New York Philharmonic Society.
[Thomas (1905), p. 149] In this period it was customary for the conductor to change from season to season, sometimes with two men sharing the duties. On 18 February 1851, he began a series of
quartet concerts, the first being given at
Hope Chapel. Eisfeld was also the first conductor of the
Brooklyn Philharmonic
There have been several organisations referred to as the Brooklyn Philharmonic. The most recent one was the now-defunct Brooklyn Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra, an American orchestra based in the New York City borough of Brooklyn, in existence fr ...
Society, which was founded in 1857. He continued in this position, alternating with
Theodore Thomas between 1862 and 1865, before Thomas took over. This period also saw the composition of some brief works by Eisfeld.
[see Library of Congress scans under his name, some reproduced at IMSLP]
On Eisfeld's return trip from a visit to Europe in September 1858, he was one of the few survivors of the burning of the steamship where he was lashed to a platform and so drifted on the ocean, without food, for nearly two days and nights. Eisfeld never recovered from this extraordinary prostration, returning to Germany in 1866, and remained there until his death in Wiesbaden at 66.
In his autobiography,
Theodore Thomas described Eisfeld as follows:
Conductors of the New York Philharmonic Society, 1849 - 1865
* 1849-1854 Eisfeld
[Ritter (1883), p. 348]
* 1854-1855 Eisfeld and
Henry Timm
* 1855-1856
Carl Bergmann
* 1856-1858 Eisfeld
* 1858-1859 Bergmann
* 1859-1865 Bergmann and Eisfeld
Notes
References
*
''Opera Almanac''
External links
*
Bibliography
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Eisfeld, Theodore
1816 births
1882 deaths
American conductors (music)
American male conductors (music)
German conductors (music)
German male conductors (music)
German emigrants to the United States
Music directors of the New York Philharmonic
19th-century conductors (music)
19th-century American musicians
People from Wolfenbüttel
People from the Duchy of Brunswick
19th-century German musicians