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. The outbreak of the war sealed his career as a composer, and most of his property was destroyed. He died a poor and forgotten man on 14 November 1922 in Vienna. He was buried in the Zentralfriedhof in the graves of honour. His wife was buried beside him.