27/04/1803 in Manchester, UK - 23/11/1848 in Wien, Austria
Music critic, composer and one of the founders of the Vienna Philharmonics. He studied law In Heidelberg, Göttingen and Berlin, then edited a commercial newspaper founded by his father in Cologne, turned to Düsseldorf out of love for art, where he dealt with Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy. In 1838 Becher became Professor of music theory and aestheticsthe Koninklijke Academie van beeldende Kunsten in The Hague. In 1840 he moved to London, where he became a Professor at the Royal Academy of Music. From 1842 he remained in Vienna. Here he quickly became involved in cultural and Social Life and soon worked as a music reviewer for the Wiener Allgemeine Musik-Zeitung and the Sonntagsblätter. Becher attracted attention with his sharp reviews and performed with songs and string quartets. The March days of 1848 dragged him into the maelstrom of politics. A member of the Democratic Central Committee, he became, together with Hermann Jellinek, editor of the daily newspaper Der Radikale. Therefore, after the suppression of the uprising, he was arrested, sentenced to death and shot dead together with Jellinek in front of the Neutor in Vienna.
