Theodore Eisfeld

Eisfeld's chief instructor in musical composition was Carl Gottlieb Reissiger, of Dresden.

[2] He began the custom of giving an annual Christmas performance of Handel's Messiah.

[1] From 1849 through the 1865/1866 season, when he resigned, Eisfeld often served as conductor of the New York Philharmonic Society.

[5] On Eisfeld's return trip from a visit to Europe in September 1858, he was one of the few survivors of the burning of the steamship SS Austria where he was lashed to a platform and so drifted on the ocean, without food, for nearly two days and nights.

Eisfeld never recovered from this extraordinary prostration, returning to Germany in 1866, and remaining there until his death in Wiesbaden at 66.