Background
He was born on May 7, 1850 at Pest, Hungary. None of the printed accounts of his life gives the names of his parents, and by some it was supposed that he was the natural son of Franz Liszt.
He was born on May 7, 1850 at Pest, Hungary. None of the printed accounts of his life gives the names of his parents, and by some it was supposed that he was the natural son of Franz Liszt.
In 1870 he entered the Leipzig Conservatorium, where he studied music under Ernst Ferdinand Wenzel, Oscar Paul, and Ernst Friedrich Richter; he also matriculated as a student at the university and attended lectures on logic and philosophy. In the same year he returned to Pest, principally for the purpose of studying with Hans Richter, a musician who had been assisting Wagner in preparing the score of Die Meistersinger.
Upon Richter's recommendation Seidl was engaged by Wagner in 1872 to help him in his work at Bayreuth. He was employed in making the first copy of the Nibelungen score, and during the six years he was with Wagner he helped to complete the scores of Die Götterdämmerung and Parsifal.
In 1879 Seidl was appointed conductor at the Leipzig Opera House, where in the season of 1881-82 he conducted the first performances of the Nibelungen cycle ever heard in Berlin. The following season he was appointed conductor of the Travelling Wagner Theatre, with which he toured through England and most of Europe. In 1883 he became conductor of the Bremen Opera House.
In 1885 he was invited by Edmund C. Stanton, director of the Metropolitan Opera House, to come to New York as conductor of German opera to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Leopold Damrosch. He made his debut at the Metropolitan conducting a performance of Lohengrin, November 23, 1885, and achieved an immediate success. From this time until his death he made his home in New York and in 1891 became a naturalized American citizen.
Though he had little time for literary work, he acted as editor-in-chief of The Music of the Modern World (1895 - 97), which contained his valuable article "On Conducting, " and contributed an important article on "The Development of Music in America" to the Forum of May 1892.
When German opera was temporarily dropped at the Metropolitan in 1891, he became conductor of the Philharmonic Society of New York, succeeding Theodore Thomas, who had been called to Chicago. He held this position for the seven remaining years of his life, but in 1895-97 he again conducted German opera at the Metropolitan, and in 1897 he visited London and Bayreuth to conduct special performances.
During this period of his life he received many invitations from abroad to leave America; he refused them all when a movement was inaugurated in New York to form a permanent Seidl orchestra and to guarantee its expenses. While these plans were materializing he died suddenly of ptomaine poisoning.
He was an atheist.
On February 29, 1884, he married Auguste Kraus, a singer who had been associated with the Travelling Wagner Theatre. They had no children.