Composer, church musician, choir director and teacher, born and died in Vienna. / The son of a lawyer graduated from 1903-1907 the  k.k. Lehrerbildungsanstalt in Vienna and after two years as a provisional sub-teacher in November 1910 acquired the teaching qualification for general elementary schools. According to his interests, he frequented courses in school singing in 1911 and passed the teacher training examination for piano and organ in 1915. He works as church musician at the church of Altlerchenfeld in Vienna, when the guitarist Alfred Rondorf inspired him to compose works with guitar. His quartet No. 1 was premiered in Vienna on November 17, 1927. In 1934 the city school council for Vienna explicitly expressed his appreciation for “worthy elevation and organization of singing lessons”. In addition to his teaching profession, was working as a church musician, so he temporarily led the church choir Altlerchenfeld, with which he also performed his own compositions. The boy's choir of the Hernalser “Marien-Singvögel” was also under his direction. After Austria's so-called annexation to the German Reich, for political reasons, Schmetterer was put into permanent retirement at the end of May 1938 and was on leave until retirement. After he was due to return to active primary school in May 1942, he quit his job on June 30 of the same year and moved to the Vienna city administration. After the end of the war, was initially working as a primary school teacher in Taiskirchen (Ried im Innkreis). In addition, on behalf of the City School Council for Vienna, he prepared expert reports on the political behavior of fellow teachers “for the time of Hitler's rule in Austria”. In 1947, Schmetterer‘s submission for the “Austrian Folk Anthem” competition was disregarded. The following year, he was officially retired. Against the background of atomic armament, in the 1960s, Schmetterer presented the “Pacifist March”. (Rainer Stelle)