He was taught by tutors on his parents' estate and took his school-leaving examination at the old German-Polish grammar school in Lemberg.
From 1900 to 1903, he studied at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater München with Josef Gabriel Rheinberger, Viktor Gluth and Ludwig Thuille, with the latter privately until 1905.
[1] In the 1920s, Ettinger was very successful as a composer, his literary operas were performed in Nuremberg, Hamburg, Munich, Kiel and Leipzig.
[3] In 1933, he emigrated to Switzerland with Austrian nationality because of his birth in Lemberg and settled in Ascona, where he already owned a house.
He lost his house through a bank bankruptcy and received support from the Swiss Israelite poor relief organisation.