Karl Zike

Russian conductor, teacher and musicologist (b. 1851; d. 22 May/3 June 1890 in Saint Petersburg), born Karl Karlovich Zike (Карл Карлович Зике,).

Trained at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory, Zike was the author of a small number of musical works, but is perhaps best known for his four-hand arrangement of Glinka's opera Ruslan and Lyudmila. During the 1880s Karl Zike was conductor of the Russian Musical Society symphony concerts, and professor at the conservatories in Moscow (1881–1882) and Saint Petersburg (1882–1889), where his students included Anton Arensky. In 1889 he was appointed by Anton Rubinstein as inspector of the provincial branches of the Russian Musical Society.

Zike conducted the premiere of the revised version of Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 2 (1881), and the first performance in Saint Petersburg of the opera Yevgeny Onegin (1883).