His students included, among others, Norbert Glanzberg, Karl Höller, Winfried Zillig, Kurt Eichhorn, Maria Landes-Hindemith, and Carl Orff.

He studied from 1897 at the Dr. Hoch Conservatory in Frankfurt, piano with James Kwast, counterpoint and morphology with Iwan Knorr, and composition with Bernhard Scholz.

In 1901, Zilcher moved to Berlin, where he quickly established himself mainly as a pianist for singers and instrumentalists, with concert tours, which made him internationally known in the United States and in Europe.

For these accomplishments, Zilcher was appointed in 1924 Privy Councillor by the Bavarian government and the University of Würzburg awarded him an honorary doctorate.

In the final phase of World War II, Zilcher was approved to not serving on the front line, but was involved in the preparations for the Mozart Festival.

Alfred Einstein characterized Zilcher as follows: "one of the greatest German composers in the semi-Brahms tradition, with a neo-romantic and semi-impressionistic tonal direction."

There is also a preference for the "Volkston" (in the style of folk music), similar to his models of Schumann and Brahms, but which is also to be found in more modern composers like Bartok or Hindemith.

Zilcher had special success in his lifetime with the oratorio Die Liebesmesse ("The Love Fair") premiere 1913 in Strasbourg, France, with his "Deutschen Volksliederspiel" for four mixed voices and piano in 1915, and with the première of his violin concerto No.