Karl Eckert became an orphan early in life and was adopted by the poet Friedrich Christoph Förster. Already around 1825 Eckert made a name for himself as a musical prodigy. Förster enabled him to receive comprehensive musical training in piano, violin and horn playing including with Karl Wilhelm Greulich, F. Bötticher and Hubert Ries as well as in composition with Carl Friedrich Zelter and Carl Friedrich Rungenhagen. Zelter became aware of Eckert and invited him to the ''Sing Akademie'' as an alto in 1832. Rungenhagen was also enthusiastic about Eckert and took him on as a pupil. Later also under Mendelssohn in Leipzig with whom he completed his studies.
Supported and encouraged by Zelter, Eckert was able to make his debut as a pianist in the fall of 1832 with a solo concerto. In 1830 he made his public debut as a composer with the opera "Das Fischermädchen" and in 1833, at just 13 years of age, as a conductor with his own oratorio "Ruth" with the Sing Akademie. Two years later he gave his first concert as a violinist.
In the mid 1840s Eckert belonged to a circle of artists in Rome centering around Ludwig Landsberg, Eduard Franck and Théodore Gouvy. He was later appointed Kapellmeister at the ''Royal Court Opera'', a post he held until the spring of 1848. During the March Revolution of 1848 Eckert left Berlin in a mad rush and emigrated to Amsterdam and later to Brussels.
At a concert in Paris in 1850 Eckert met the singer Henriette Sontag and her husband, the diplomat Carlo Rossi. The following year Eckert accompanied Sontag on their tour of the USA where the singer was able to build on her earlier successes.
In 1853 Eckert returned to Europe. In 1853 he became conductor at the ''Theater am Kärntnertor'' in Vienna and was its director from 1858 to 1860. Under his direction, the first performances of Wagner's Lohengrin (1858) and Tannhäuser (1859) were the outstanding events. Afterwards he was court bandmaster in Stuttgart. In 1868 Wilhelm I, King of Prussia, reappointed Eckert to the Royal Court Opera in Berlin where he worked as Court Kapellmeister until 1879. From 1875 to 1879 he was also a member of the Prussian Academy of Arts, Berlin, Department for Music.
In addition to his official duties at the Court Opera, Eckert created a small compositional oeuvre of his own and arranged some works by earlier musicians. As a close friend of Richard Wagner, it was to Eckert's credit to have premiered several of Wagner's works in Berlin.
Karl Anton Eckert died in Berlin at the age of 58.
In 1875 the ''Eckertgasse in Vienna Favoriten'' (10th district) was named after him.
Note: Translated from the German version of Wikipedia into English.
