Edouard Silas

Edouard Silas (22 August 18278 February 1909) who was born in Amsterdam and died in London, was a Dutch composer and organist.

He studied music at Mannheim, in Frankfurt with Louis Lacombe, and then in Paris with Friedrich Kalkbrenner, François Benoist and Jacques Fromental Halévy. He lived in London from 1850. Silas was organist at the Catholic Chapel of Kingston upon Thames and Professor of Harmony at the Guildhall School of Music. There are also many solo piano pieces, the best known of which include the Gavotte in E minor, Bourree in G minor, Malvina (a romance), the Suite in A minor Op.103, and Six Duets.

Silas was a teacher of harmony at the Guildhall School of Music and wrote an unpublished Treatise on Musical Notation. He was a noted chess player, and was known for his humour. In his Musical Times obituary, he was remembered as "a character" often seen in the British Museum Reading Room: "the little man with remarkable features and wearing a red fez". His address was 7 Comeragh Road, West Kensington, where he died in 1909, aged 81.