Benjamin Bilse was a German

Germans

The Germans are a Germanic ethnic group native to Central Europe. The English term Germans has referred to the German-speaking population of the Holy Roman Empire since the Late Middle Ages....

 conductor and composer.

Bilse was born in Liegnitz

Legnica

Legnica is a town in south-western Poland, in Silesia, in the central part of Lower Silesia, on the plain of Legnica, riverside: Kaczawa and Czarna Woda. Between 1 June 1975 and 31 December 1998 Legnica was the capital of the Legnica Voivodeship. It is currently the seat of the county...

 (present-day Legnica) in the Prussian Silesia Province. He obtained a rich musical education, as at the Vienna Conservatory under violinist Joseph Böhm

Joseph Böhm

Joseph Böhm was a violinist and teacher.He was born in Pest. He was taught by his father and by Pierre Rode. His brother Franz Böhm was too the well-known violinist and the soloist in the Russian empire in an imperial orchestra....

, and played in the orchestra of Johann Strauss I

Johann Strauss I

Johann Strauss I , born in Vienna, was an Austrian Romantic composer famous for his waltzes, and for popularizing them alongside Joseph Lanner, thereby setting the foundations for his sons to carry on his musical dynasty...

. Returned to Liegnitz, he became municipal Kapellmeister

Kapellmeister

Kapellmeister is a German word designating a person in charge of music-making. The word is a compound, consisting of the roots Kapelle and Meister . The words Kapelle and Meister derive from the Latin: capella and magister...

in 1842.

From 1867 he regularly performed with the "Bilse's Band" (Bilse'sche Kapelle) at the Concerthaus on Leipziger Straße in Berlin. The orchestra became increasingly popular, Bilse toured Europe and gave guest concerts in Saint Petersburg

Saint Petersburg

Saint Petersburg is a city and a federal subject of Russia located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea...

, Riga

Riga

Riga is the capital and largest city of Latvia. With 702,891 inhabitants Riga is the largest city of the Baltic states, one of the largest cities in Northern Europe and home to more than one third of Latvia's population. The city is an important seaport and a major industrial, commercial,...

, Warsaw

Warsaw

Warsaw is the capital and largest city of Poland. It is located on the Vistula River, roughly from the Baltic Sea and from the Carpathian Mountains. Its population in 2010 was estimated at 1,716,855 residents with a greater metropolitan area of 2,631,902 residents, making Warsaw the 10th most...

, Amsterdam

Amsterdam

Amsterdam is the largest city and the capital of the Netherlands. The current position of Amsterdam as capital city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands is governed by the constitution of August 24, 1815 and its successors. Amsterdam has a population of 783,364 within city limits, an urban population...

, Vienna

Vienna

Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...

, as well as at the 1867 Exposition Universelle

Exposition Universelle (1867)

The Exposition Universelle of 1867 was a World Exposition held in Paris, France, in 1867.-Conception:In 1864, Emperor Napoleon III decreed that an international exposition should be held in Paris in 1867. A commission was appointed with Prince Jerome Napoleon as president, under whose direction...

in Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

, where his band performed The Blue Danube

The Blue Danube

The Blue Danube is the common English title of An der schönen blauen Donau, Op. 314 , a waltz by the Austrian composer Johann Strauss II, composed in 1866...

together with Johann Strauss II

Johann Strauss II

Johann Strauss II , also known as Johann Baptist Strauss or Johann Strauss, Jr., the Younger, or the Son , was an Austrian composer of light music, particularly dance music and operettas. He composed over 500 waltzes, polkas, quadrilles, and other types of dance music, as well as several operettas...

. In 1873 Richard Wagner

Richard Wagner

Wilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer, conductor, theatre director, philosopher, music theorist, poet, essayist and writer primarily known for his operas...

 conducted the orchestra in the presence of Emperor Wilhelm I

William I, German Emperor

William I, also known as Wilhelm I , of the House of Hohenzollern was the King of Prussia and the first German Emperor .Under the leadership of William and his Chancellor Otto von Bismarck, Prussia achieved the unification of Germany and the...

.

After a fierce quarrel with Bilse about another fourth-class concert trip to Warsaw, 54 musicians in 1882 split to found the "Former Bilse's Band" under conductor Ludwig von Brenner

Ludwig von Brenner

Ludwig von Brenner was a German conductor and composer.He was born in Leipzig, and studied at Leipzig conservatoire, later going to Saint Petersburg to play in the court orchestra of the Tsar...

, shortly afterwards renamed Berlin Philharmonic, today one of the world's leading orchestras. Bilse retired a few years later and returned to Liegnitz, where he also died.

See also

• Joachim Andersen
  Joachim Andersen
  Carl Joachim Andersen was a Danish flutist, conductor and composer born in Copenhagen, son of the flutist Christian Joachim Andersen. Both as a virtuoso and as composer of flute music, he is considered one of the best of his time...
  
  
• Eugène Ysaÿe
  Eugène Ysaÿe
  Eugène Ysaÿe was a Belgian violinist, composer and conductor born in Liège. He was regarded as "The King of the Violin", or, as Nathan Milstein put it, the "tzar"...