Karl August Krebs

Karl August Krebs (16 January 1804 as Karl August Miedke – 16 May 1880), also Carl Miedtke, was a German pianist, composer, conductor and Kapellmeister. Life Krebs was born in Nuremberg in 1804. His parents were the actor Carl Miedke and the singer Charlotte Miedke, née Pfister, who both worked at the Staatstheater Nürnberg there. In 1805, the family moved to Stuttgart, where his mother died just one year later. Karl August was adopted, with his father’s consent, by the court singer Johann Baptist Krebs and his wife Maria Anna, and subsequently took the name of his foster father. His foster father’s activities at the and his many contacts in artistic circles encouraged Karl August’s interest in music. As early as his sixth year, he played piano concertos by Mozart, Dussek and Ries, taught by Johann Nepomuk Schelble. His talent for composition, nurtured by his adoptive father, also caused a great stir and he was counted among the child prodigies of his time. In 1825, at the age of 21, he went to Vienna, studied with Ignaz von Seyfried composition and improved his piano playing skills. He distinguished himself as a piano virtuoso and on 1 April 1826 became third Kapellmeister at the