Anton Karas not satisfied, as he would have preferred to perform for locals who would understand him, his language and music. Because of this, he retired and retreated from the limelight in 1966, explaining, "I'm not a tourist guy, and what I did there had hardly anything to do with 'Vienna Heuriger'." Anton Karas Anton Karas (7 July 1906 – 10 January 1985) was a Viennese zither player and composer, best known for his internationally famous 1948 soundtrack to Carol Reed's "The Third Man", which came about as a result of a chance meeting. Born in Vienna, one of five children of
Anton Karas many of the British element of the Allied Control Commission for Austria. Robert Baty, the young son of the Director of Education, C.W. Baty, was given the task of showing the director around the city. On the second day they stopped at a "Heuriger", a wine tavern where growers offer their own wines for sale directly, and heard Karas playing the zither in the background. This is described in Karas' L.A. Times/Reuters obituary which states that: Reed, desperately searching for a theme tune ... chanced on the tavern in Vienna's Grinzing wine-growing district. Struck by the simple zither melodies, Reed