the Philharmonic enjoyed a period of unprecedented success and prosperity. Under his baton the orchestra played for the first time in Carnegie Hall on 18 November in 1892. While in New York, he conducted the world premiere of Antonín Dvořák's Symphony No. 9, "From the New World", which greatly influenced the direction of American classical music. Dvořák had added that subtitle to the title page of his autograph score in Carnegie Hall just before turning it over to Seidl. He also had a significant role in the genesis of Edvard Grieg's Lyric Suite. It started as Seidl's orchestrations of four pieces from Book V of Grieg's Lyric Pieces, which he put together as Norwegian Suite. While Grieg acknowledged the merit of the arrangements, he nevertheless chose to revise them in 1905, and published three of them, along with an arrangement of a fourth piece he made himself directly from the original piano score, into his own Lyric Suite. On March 28, 1898, Seidl died from food poisoning (then erroneously called "ptomaine poisoning") reportedly caused from eating a serving of tainted fish. He was only 47 years old. Several thousand people attended the memorial, held at the Metropolitan Opera House. He was an atheist. Urn of Life Seidl's friends and colleagues commissioned sculptor George Grey Barnard to create a marble burial urn to hold the conductor's ashes. After Seidl's widow declined the large ornate urn, Barnard carved a smaller, simplified version, which now holds both their ashes. The unused Urn of Life was sold by Barnard in 1919 to the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Notes References Excerpts from Memoirs of Anton Seidl Further reading Finck, Henry Theophilus and Krehbiel, Henry Edward. Anton Seidl; a memorial by his friends. New York, C. Scribner's Sons, 1899. External links Anton Seidl collection of musical papers at the Columbia University Rare Book and Manuscript Library, New York, NY 19th-century Hungarian people 19th-century conductors (music) Hungarian atheists Hungarian conductors (music) Hungarian male musicians Male conductors (music) Hungarian expatriates in Germany American atheists American conductors (music) American male conductors (music) Austro-Hungarian emigrants to the United States People from Pest, Hungary 1850 births 1898 deaths Conductors of the Metropolitan Opera Music directors of the New York Philharmonic 19th-century American musicians