Carl Michael Ziehrer

Carl Michael Ziehrer was an Austrian composer and conductor who was the most successful competitor to the Strauss family. His expansive legacy of over 600 works includes songs, operettas, and dances such as polkas, marches, and waltzes. Ziehrer was born in Vienna in 1843 into a non-musical family. He began playing the piano at a young age and was considered to be a musical prodigy. His father was a hatmaker who arranged with the music publisher Carl Haslinger to finance his son's education in exchange for the publishing rights to his compositions after he graduated. After fi...