Anshutz, Karl

1815-1870

Noted opera and orchestra conductor. Born in Coblentz, Germany, where his father was a well-known musician and had founded a musical school. His first studies were with his father. Later, he went to Dessau and studied under Friedrich Schneider. When he returned to Coblentz, in 1844, he took charge of his father's Musical Institute, but four years later he went to London and became leader of the orchestra at Drury Lane Theatre. At one of his concerts in London he gave Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, with an orchestra of two hundred and fifty musicians and a chorus of five hundred singers. After conducting opera in Dublin, Edinburgh, Glasgow and all over Great Britain, he came to the United States, in 1857, with Ullmann's Italian Opera Company, which he conducted for three years. In 1862, he founded in New York the German Opera, which, unfortunately, was unsuccessful. He also helped to establish  the New York Conservatory of Music and from 1860 to 1862 was conductor of the Arion Singing Society. He was a composer of some ability, his works being piano pieces and songs. He also wrote for brass instruments the Nine Symphonies of Beethoven.