Brase, Wilhelm Fritz (1875–1940), musician, was born 4 May 1875 at Egestorf, near Hanover, Germany. He graduated at the Leipzig conservatoire and the Berlin academy of music, was the youngest person to become ‘royal musical director’ (1909), attained a leading position among the bandmasters of the imperial German army, and organised bands for the Berlin police. In October 1922 Gen. Richard Mulcahy (qv) decided to found an Irish army school of music, to act also as a force in cultural and other fields of national life; Brase was appointed (1 January 1923) to command it with the rank of colonel and Capt. Friedrich Christian Sauerzweig as his assistant. Despite initial difficulties, Brase's ‘Army No. 1 Band’ gave its first public recital at the Theatre Royal, Dublin, on 14 October 1923; it later made annual tours of Ireland, and took part in the first broadcast by the national radio station 2RN (1 January 1926). The school began training conductors and enlisting boy trainees in 1924, and produced three further bands for the southern and western commands and Curragh training camp (1925–36).
Brase supplied 2RN with musicians and conductors, served on the broadcasting advisory committee, and in 1930 led a deputation of the committee to press (successfully) for a larger radio orchestra. He was also active in Dublin musical life as a founder member and director (1927–36) of the Dublin Philharmonic Society, and composed six fantasias on Irish themes. He clashed with Séamus Clandillon (qv), 2RN's first director, over ‘bad music masquerading as traditional music’. Brase received a professorship (1935) from Adolf Hitler, but under pressure from the Irish army authorities he formally left the Nazi Auslandsorganisation. He married (1911) Elizabeth Conrads; they had two children, their daughter Mona being born in Ireland. Brase died 1 December 1940 in St Bricin's military hospital, Dublin, and was buried with full military honours in Mount Jerome cemetery.