After his return to Germany, he took a position as a tenor singer in Ansbach at the court chapel of George Frederick, Margrave of Brandenburg-Ansbach in 1572, where he remained until 1574.
The composer married in Dresden in 1578, and in the following years they had seven sons Rogier, Tobias, Simon, Samuel, Christian, Georg and Daniel.
Samuel Michael, Daniel and Christian all studied under their father and four of the sons later became composers, particularly Tobias, who was kantor at the Thomaskirche in Leipzig from 1631 to 1657.
When John Georg I of Saxony succeeded to the Electorate in 1611, most of the court orchestra was dismissed before it was then reconstructed without Michael's input.
In contrast to his predecessors Scandello and Pinello, known as composers, he cultivated the polyphonic stile antico in sacred music as well as the new Italian madrigal style, which was articulated in short quarter and eighth notes.
In his two surviving narrative compositions for Immaculate Conception and Christmas, Michael consciously built upon Scandello's St John Passion and Resurrection Story.
In an inventory of the Dresden Court Church from 1666, a "Handbuchlein von der Begnis, gebuhrt, Leiden und Auferstehung Jesu Christi in schwarzes Leder gebunden" is listed, which could have served Scandello, Michael and Schütz could all have used as a model for their works' libretti.