Carl Albert Hermann Teike (5 February 1864 – 28 May 1922) was a German

composer A composer is a person who writes music. The term is especially used to indicate composers of Western classical music, or those who are composers by occupation. Many composers are, or were, also skilled performers of music. Etymology and Defi ...

who wrote over 100 military marches and twenty concert works.

Biography

Born the son of a blacksmith in Stettin-Altdamm, Pomerania, Teike was the fourth of 14 children in his family. He began studying music when he was 14, playing a variety of instruments. When he was 19, he joined the army of Württemberg as a musician in the 123rd König Karls Regiment. He was stationed in the

Swabia Swabia ; german: Schwaben , colloquially ''Schwabenland'' or ''Ländle''; archaic English also Suabia or Svebia is a cultural, historic and linguistic region in southwestern Germany. The name is ultimately derived from the medieval Duchy of ...

n city Ulm, where he played French horn and percussion for the orchestras of local theaters. Teike began writing military marches, including one in 1889 that would eventually be named ''

Alte Kameraden "" ("Old Comrades") is the title of a popular German military march. It is included in the ''Armeemarschsammlung'' as HM II, 150. History The march was written around 1889 in Ulm, Germany, by military music composer Carl Teike. Teike wrote many ...

'' ("Old Comrades"). Upon his bandmaster's disapproval of that composition, Teike resigned from the army. A publisher purchased the song from him for twenty German Goldmark. ''Alte Kameraden'' later became one of the most popular marches in the world. Teike became a police officer in Ulm and married his landlord's daughter. They moved to Potsdam in Brandenburg in 1895, where he continued work as a police officer until illness led to his resignation in 1908. He eventually began working as a postal employee in Landsberg an der Warthe in

East Brandenburg The Neumark (), also known as the New March ( pl, Nowa Marchia) or as East Brandenburg (), was a region of the Margraviate of Brandenburg and its successors located east of the Oder River in territory which became part of Poland in 1945. Call ...

, where he died in 1922. Potsdam, Plaque for Carl Teike (20201230 140750 HDR)

Teike is commemorated in Potsdam with a plaque on the exterior of the Mercure Hotel.

External links

*
List of Marches by Carl Teike
* "The Graf Zeppelin March"
"Alte Kameraden" by Carl Teike
1864 births 1922 deaths German composers German police officers Military music composers 19th-century German musicians {{Germany-composer-stub