Richard Wagner's Apostle to
America—Anton Seidl (1850-1898)

EDWARD W. LERNER

FEW years after his sudden and untimely death, on
March z8, 1898, the friends of Anton Seidl, America's
foremost interpreter of Richard Wagner's Music-
Dramas, presented 1100 of his scores and orchestral parts to
Columbia University.^ These prints and manuscripts were to form
the nucleus of the collection now bearing his name. In subsequent
years Seidl's widow added to these archives mementos of the con¬
ductor, programs of his concerts, and documents and letters deal¬
ing with Wagner's circle.

Columbia's Seidl Collection provides a fascinating commentary
on musical life and practices in New York when Wagner's "Art
Work of the Future" first resounded through the newly-built
iMetropolitan Opera House. Not that the iVIetropolitan was con¬
structed to acquaint New Yorkers with the Music-Drama emanat¬
ing from Germany. Indeed, social rather than artistic needs
provided the impetus to build the "Yellow Brewery on Broad¬
way." In 1882, when a box at the opera was de rigeur for all
socially acceptable millionaires, several industrial and commercial
tycoons of new vintage discovered to their dismay that accommo¬
dations at the Academy of jMusic were unavailable at any price.
To achieve respectability, even at the possible expense of bore¬
dom, seventy members of New York society expended somewhat

^ In accepting the Seidl documents, the trustees of Columbia University passed
the following resolution on iVlay i, 1899 (Seidl Coll. 09S/JB):

Resolved, that, in accepting this trust, the Trustees desire to place upon
record their appreciation of the opportunity to associate with the Uni¬
versity the name of Anton Seidl, whose services in the cause of music in
this city will thus be held in lasting remembrance.