Arthur Nikisch was a Hungarian conductor known for his spontaneous and dynamic interpretations of works from the Romantic period. He was also a recording pioneer, and in 1913 he made one of the earliest symphonic recordings.

Nikisch was born in 1855 in the Hungarian town of Lébényszentmiklós, located near the border with Austria. His mother was Hungarian and his father was Moravian, and they recognized his musical talents at a very young age and provided him with music lessons. When he was 11 years old, he enrolled at the Vienna Conservatory, where his violin teacher was Josef Hellmesberger Sr., and he also studied composition with Felix Otto Dessoff and conducting with Johann Ritter von Herbeck. Nikisch was an exceptional student and won prizes in all three subjects, but his main interest was the violin. Following his graduation, he joined the Vienna Court Orchestra as a violinist in 1874. In this role, he performed under many of the most prominent composers and conductors of the time, including Brahms, Wagner, and Bruckner.

Nikisch's career as a conductor began in 1878 when he became the assistant conductor of the Leipzig Opera, and he was promoted to principal conductor in the following year. Over the next ten years, his reputation continued to grow, and he became a favorite conductor of Tchaikovsky, Brahms, and many others. In 1885 he married the singer Amelie Heussner, and they moved to Boston in 1889, where Nikisch became the conductor for the Boston Symphony Orchestra. He led the BSO on several tours in the U.S., and in 1893 he became the musical director of the Budapest Opera. Nikisch remained in Hungary until 1895, when he accepted conductor positions with both the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra and the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra. Nikisch and his wife had a son, Mitja, in 1899, who became an accomplished pianist later as an adult. In the early 1900s, he made guest conductor appearances with the Amsterdam Concertgebouw Orchestra, the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, and the London Symphony Orchestra. With these groups, he toured the U.S. and Europe, and he also performed in Moscow, St. Petersburg, and Buenos Aires. Additionally, he was appointed director of the Leipzig Conservatory, and he taught a conducting class. Nikisch taught and conducted in Leipzig and Hamburg until his death in 1922. His controlled style and use of eye contact was enormously influential to later generations of conductors, including Wilhelm Furtwängler, Adrian Boult, and Fritz Reiner. ~ RJ Lambert, Rovi