The Disciple

Wagnerism dominated American cultural and intellectual life of the late nineteenth century. The central apostle was the conductor Anton Seidl, a prote ge and surrogate son of the composer. Seidl arrived in the US in 1885. His life’ s mission became the propagation of Wagner in the US. In this capacity, his influence was immense greater than Toscanini or Bernstein in decades to come. His early death, in1898, preceded the advent of broadcasts and recordings.

In The Disciple, Seidl is remembered as a man beset by hidden sorrow. In a sense, he never recuperated from Wagner’ s death in 1882 Seidl was then 32 years old. The impact of the Wagner personality was indelible and not only on Seidl.

The larger picture: the late Gilded Age marked the apex of classical music in the US. Seidl and Antonin Dvorak (also in The Disciple) were the most prominent, most influential personalities. Not much later came Gustav Mahler (1908-1911) and The Disciple is in fact a prequel to Horowitz’ s acclaimed The Marriage: The Mahlers in New York. Both books argue that historical fiction can become an indispensable tool for cultural history.

The principal secondary character of the novel is Laura Langford, who as founder of the Seidl Society became the most important concert impresario in Brooklyn. The Seidl Society presented Seidl in concert fourteen times a week at Coney Island’ s Brighton Beach resort. On Wagner Nights, the 3,000-seat music pavilion would fill to capacity. In winter, the Society presented Seidl in concert at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. This story is very little known. In fact, most American Wagnerites were women for whom Wagner afforded a necessary opportunity for emotional release.

Author Biography

Joseph Horowitz’ s eleven previous books mainly deal with the history of classical music in the United States. Understanding Toscanini: How He Became an American Culture-God and Helped Create a New Audience for Old Music (1987) was named one of the year’ s best books by the New York Book Critics Circle. Wagner Nights: An American History (1994) was named best-of-the-year by the Society of American Music. Both Classical Music in America: A History of Its Rise and Fall (2005) and Artists in Exile: How Refugees from Twentieth Century War and Revolution Transformed the American Performing Arts (2008) made The Economist’ s year’ s-best-books list.

In tandem with his Dvor k’ s Prophecy and the Vexed Fate of Black Classical Music (2021), Horowitz produced six “ Dvor k’ s Prophecy” films for Naxos. His current “ More than Music” radio documentaries for National Public Radio, heard bi-montly via the daily newsmagazine “ 1A,” are an outgrowth of this activity. His forthcoming book, The Propaganda of Freedom: JFK, Stravinsky, Shostakovich, and the Cultural Cold Warrior, will deal with the cultural Cold War. The larger topic of all these activities is the role of the arts (today embattled) in American history and society.

Horowitz’ s website is www.josephhorowitz.com. His blog is www.artsjournal.com/uq.