 He was intended for the profession of a chemist, and studied chemistry at the University of Breslau, but his drive to write music was greater.From 1862 to 1865 he studied with Ignaz Moscheles and Carl Reinecke at the Leipzig Conservatory, where Edvard Grieg and Johan Svendsen were among his fellow students; he also studied privately with Carl Riedel.Finding Leipzig's classicism uncongenial to his more romantic temperament, after his graduation Schulz-Beuthen left Germany for Switzerland, where he taught composition in Zurich from 1866 to 1880.