Friedrich Silcher

Philipp Friedrich Silcher (Schnait, Württemberg, 1789 - Tübingen, 1860) was a German composer best known for his work collecting folk songs and for his role in popularising choral music among the general public. His figure is representative of German musical Romanticism in the sphere of education and communal singing.

His training was initially domestic: he received his first lessons from his father and then from N. F. Auberlen, organist of Fellbach, near Stuttgart, who prepared him for teaching and gave him a solid musical foundation. He worked as a private tutor in Schorndorf and, from 1809, as a teacher at a girls' school in Ludwigsburg. An encounter with Weber led him to devote himself entirely to music. After settling in Stuttgart in 1815, he refined his piano playing and composition with Konradin Kreutzer and Hummel. That same period saw the cantata he composed for the University of Tübingen to mark the tercentenary of the Reformation, which earned him the post of university music director in 1817 and a professorship at the Evangelical Seminary. He founded the Akademische Liedertafel in 1820 and the Oratorienchor in 1839. The university awarded him an honorary doctorate in 1852 and, on his retirement in 1860, he received the Knight's Cross of the Order of Peace.

Silcher took an interest in folk song from his contact with Pestalozzi in 1816. Together with Hans Georg Nägeli, he promoted popular musical education, convinced that folk song was the most suitable genre for the general public to sing. Choral societies and domestic singing groups arose as a result, and music in schools was encouraged. He collected and harmonised songs from Germany and other countries, composed some 250 songs in popular style inspired by Mozart, Weber and Mendelssohn, and prepared practical editions of chorales. His legacy is recognised in the critical edition published to mark the centenary of his death and in the archive and museum opened in Schnait in 1956.