Karl Michael Ziehrer, beloved Viennese composer of waltzes and
operettas, was born in Vienna on May 2, 1843. He was completely
self-taught in music. In 1863 he formed a café-house orchestra with
which he toured Austria and Germany, often featuring his own dance
pieces and marches. He later expanded this orchestra into an ensemble
numbering fifty players with which he gave a series of successful
concerts of semi-classical music in Vienna. In 1907 he became music
director of the court balls. After World War I he suffered extreme
poverty, his personal fortune having been lost with the collapse of the
Hapsburg monarchy. He died in want and obscurity in Vienna on November
14, 1922.
Ziehrer wrote more than five hundred popular pieces for orchestra,
including numerous marches and waltzes. His waltzes were particularly
favored, many of these in the style of Johann Strauss II. Some are still
extensively played. Probably the most famous of all his waltzes is
Wiener Maedchen (“Vienna Maidens”), which must rank with Lehár’s “Merry
Widow Waltz” as one of the most popular such dances produced in Vienna
since the time of Johann Strauss II. Its first melody sounds like a
Schubert Laendler, with the peasant vigor of its rhythm and its robust
tune; but the main subject is a soaring waltz in the finest traditions
of Viennese café-house music. The following are other famous Ziehrer
waltzes: “_Alt Wien_” (“Old Vienna”), “_Faschingskinder_” (“Carnival
Children”), and “_Wiener Buerger_” (“Viennese Citizens”), all three of
which come closest among his works in assuming the structural outlines
and the melodic identity of the Johann Strauss waltz classics. Also
popular are the “_Donauwalzer_” (“Waltzes from the Danube”) and
“_Evatochter_” (“Daughter of Eve”).
Ziehrer’s most famous operetta is _Die Landestreicher_ (_The
Vagabonds_)—book by L. Krenn and C. Lindau, first performed in Vienna on
July 26, 1899. In upper Bavaria two tramps—Fliederbusch and his wife
Bertha—manage to live by their wits. Disguised respectively as Prince
Gilka and a dancer they visit a famous resort hotel and are involved in
numerous adventures. By managing to retrieve a supposedly valuable lost
necklace for the Prince they finally win his favor and enter his
service. Of particular interest is the captivating waltz at the end of
the first act, “_Sei gepriesen, du lauschige Nacht_.”
From several of Ziehrer’s other operettas there come other delightful
waltzes, notably “_Samt und Seide_” from _Der Fremdenfuehrer_ (1902) and
“_Hereinspaziert_” from _Der Schatzmeister_ (1904).