Gerhard Trede was born on January 17, 1913, in Hamburg, Germany. He was a successful composer in Germany from the 1940s through the 1980s. He composed for a variety of German television programs and documentaries (including the nature documentary series "The Wild, Wild World of Animals"), and composed music for the Selected Sound library, a producer of "library music" or "production music" used by producers of television, radio, and film because it offers simple flat licensing terms. He also worked under the pseudonym Victor Cavini. He died on September 30, 1996, in the Barmbek hospital in Hamburg, of heart failure. A large number of his works were purchased by Sonoton, another German production music company, and formed the "Trede Collection." His work has also been heard in many contemporary films, TV shows and video games.