He studied at a young age with Alfredo Piatti, and later Friedrich Grützmacher in Dresden.

[1] He was born in 1863 in Strasbourg (then part of France, but transferred to the German Empire in 1871); his father Jean Becker was a famous violinist.

By age fifteen he was touring with a string quartet made up of him, his father, sister, and brother.

From 1909 to 1929, he was professor of cello at the Hochschule für Musik in Berlin;[2] among his students was George Georgescu, who would replace him as cellist in the Marteau Quartet before forsaking the cello for the conductor's podium on account of a hand injury.

[5] During this time Becker also toured extensively and played chamber music with Eugène Ysaÿe and Ferruccio Busoni in a piano trio.,[1] and later with Artur Schnabel and Carl Flesch as the third Schnabel Trio[2] between 1914 and 1921.