Karl Michael Ziehrer

Karl Michael Ziehrer (also spelled as Carl Michael Ziehrer) (2 May 1843 – 14 November 1922) was an Austrian composer. In his lifetime, he was one of the fiercest rivals of the Strauss family; most notably Johann Strauss II and Eduard Strauss.

Born in Vienna, Ziehrer was taught music by Simon Sechter, a famous Viennese music theorist and pedagogue and Johann Emanuel Hasel. He was soon discovered by music publisher Carl Haslinger, one of Johann Strauss II's publishers, who had fallen out with Strauss regarding the receipts from the latter's lucrative Russian venture.

Ziehrer was, in the words of Strauss' first wife, Henrietta Treffz, "one of Haslinger's machinations," and "what Haslinger writes as his own would be passed on the ward to be published as his own." Her prophecy was, however, only ever partially fulfilled; though Ziehrer's pulsating and lively waltzes lit up Vienna, and though he challenged the famed Strauss family for the Viennese public's affections, his many works have not survived long in today's classical repertoire.

Haslinger sought to promote his promising young ward, and on 21 November 1863 the young conductor appeared as the head of a newly formed orchestra aimed at toppling the Strauss dynasty at the Dianabad-Saal in Vienna. Not long after that, he secured a place at one of Viennese military bands. As was the current trend, he took over as Kapellmeister of a large civilian orchestra in 1873. He also published the journal "Deutsche Musikzeitung" around the same time, and was credited as being one of the important sources of music study in the late 1870s.

Not long after founding the music journal, he changed his publisher to Döblinger, and toured Eastern Europe and Germany for many years, earning a good reputation as a strict yet efficient conductor. It was in 1881 that he met his future wife, Marianne Edelmann, a famous operetta singer, in Berlin.

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