A Dictionary of Music and Musicians/Scudo, Pietro
SCUDO, Pietro, born June 6, 1806, at Venice, but brought up in Germany. Some circumstance led him to Pans, and in 1816 he entered Choron's school, and studied singing there at the same time with Duprez. He never became a good singer, and after taking a secondary part in Rossini's 'Il Viaggio a Reims' left the boards, returned to Choron's school, and there picked up a slender knowledge of music. After the revolution of 1830 he played second clarinet in a military band. Returning to Paris he made his way into society, set up as a teacher of singing, and a composer of romances, one of which, 'Le fil de la Vierge,' was very successful. His knowledge of harmony and the elementary laws of musical accent was but slight, as is evident from his songs 'Le Dante,' 'La Baigneuse,' and 'Souvenir; indeed he himself admits the fact, in spite of his vanity. Continuing his career as a professor of singing, he took to writing, and published 'Physiologie du rire' and 'Les Partis politiques en province' (1838). He gradually restricted himself to musical criticism, but as long as he wrote only for the 'Revue de Paris,' the 'Réforme,' and the 'Revue indépendante,' he was unknown outside certain cliques in Paris. As musical critic to the 'Revue des deux Mondes' he became a man of mark, though he was never more than a laborious writer, who made good use of German and Italian books, and managed by means of certain dogmatic formulæ and fine writing to conceal his want of knowledge and ideas. Scudo's articles are worth reading as specimens of French musical criticism before Berlioz was known, and while Fétis occupied the field without a rival. They have been mostly republished under the following titles:—'Critique et littérature musicale' (1850, 8vo; 1852, 12mo), 2nd series (1859, 12mo); 'La Musique ancienne et moderne' (1854, 12mo); 'L'Année musicale,' 3 vols. (Hachette, 1860, 61, and 62), 'La Musique en 1862' (Hetzel, 1863), and 'Le Chevalier Sarti' (1857, 12mo), a musical novel taken from Italian and German sources, of which a continuation, 'Frédérique,' appeared in the 'Revue des Deux Mondes,' but was not republished. All his works were printed in Paris.
Scudo finally became insane, and died Oct. 14, 1864, in an asylum at Blois.