A Dictionary of Music and Musicians/Schelble, Johann Nepomuk
SCHELBLE, Johann Nepomuk, a thoroughly excellent and representative German musician, born May 16, 1789, at Hoffingen in the Black Forest, where his father was superintendent of the House of Correction. His strict musical education was begun in the Monastery of Marchthai 1800–03; and continued at Donaueschingen, under Weisse. He then spent some time, first with Vogler at Darmstadt, and then with Krebs, a distinguished singer at Stuttgart, and there, in 1812, he filled the post of elementary teacher in the Royal Musical Institution, a very famous and complete school of those times.[1] In 1813 he went to Vienna, lived in intimate acquaintance with Beethoven, Moscheles, Weigl, Spohr, etc., composed an opera and many smaller works, and went on the stage, where however his singing, though remarkable, was neutralised by his want of power to act. From Austria in 1816 he went to Frankfort, which became his home. Here the beauty of his voice, the excellence of his method, and the justness of his expression, were at once recognised. He became the favourite teacher, and in 1817 was made director of the Musical Academy. This however proved too desultory for his views, and on July 24, 1818, he formed a Society of his own, which developed into the famous 'Cæcilian Society' of Frankfort, and at the head of which he remained till his death. The first work chosen by the infant institution was the 'Zauberflöte'; then Mozart's Requiem; then one of his Masses; and then works by Handel, Cherubini, Bach, etc. In 1821 the Society assumed the name of the 'Cäcilienverein'; the repertoire was increased by works of Palestrina, Scarlatti, and other Italian masters, and at length, on March 10, 1828, Mozart's 'Davidde penitente' and the Credo of Bach's Mass in B minor were given; then, May 2, 1829 (stimulated by the example of Mendelssohn in Berlin), the Matthew Passion; and after that we hear of 'Samson' and other oratorios of Handel, Bach's motets, and choruses of Mendelssohn, whose genius Schelble was one of the first to recognise, and whose 'St. Paul' was suggested to him by the Cæcilian Association, doubtless on the motion of its conductor. Whether the Society ever attempted Beethoven's mass does not appear, but Schelble was one of the two private individuals who answered Beethoven's invitation to subscribe for its publication.' [See vol. i. p. 197 note; vol. ii. 271b.]
His health gradually declined, and at length, in the winter of 1835, it was found necessary to make some new arrangement for the direction of the Society. Mendelssohn was asked (Letters, Feb. 18, 1836), and undertook it for six weeks during the summer of 1836. Mendelssohn's fondness and esteem for the man whose place he was thus temporarily filling is evident in every sentence referring to him in his letters of this date. Schelble died Aug. 7, 1837. His great qualities as a practical musician, a conductor, and a man, are well summed up by Hiller[2] in his book on Mendelssohn, to which we refer the reader. His compositions have not survived him. His biography was published shortly after his death—'J. N. Schelble, von Weissmann' (Frankfort, 1838).