Silcher was taught to be a music educator which he forthrightly became giving private lessons after settling in Stuttgart. He composed a cantata for the University of Tubingen becoming its director in 1817. By 1820 and 1839, respectively, Silcher founded the Akademische Liedertafel and the Oratorienchor. As a contributor to the annals of music history, Silcher was a collector of folk songs and used these melodies in his pedagogical practices (i.e., teach music through popular idioms). Within the framework and influences of these folk songs, Silcher also composed about two hundred and fifty songs with structural influences coming from Mozart, Weber, and Mendelssohn. ~ Keith Johnson