rehabilitation, and in 1811 he returned to it for one year. He died on the 3rd of September 1816, As an actor Schröder was the first to depart from the stilted style of former tragedians; as a manager he raised the standard of plays presented and first brought Shakespeare before the German public. Schröder’s Dramatische Werke, with an introduction by Tieck, were published in four volumes (Berlin, 1831).
See B. Litzmann, Friedrich Ludwig Schröder (Hamburg, 1890–1894); R. Blum in the Allgemeines Theater-Lexikon (1842); and Brunier, Friedrich Ludwig Schröder (Leipzig, 1864).
SCHRÖDER, SOPHIE (1781–1868), German actress, was born
at Paderborn on the 23rd of February 1781, the daughter of an
actor, Gottfried Bürger. She made her first appearance in opera
at St Petersburg, in 1793. On Kotzebue’s recommendation she
was engaged for the Vienna Court theatre in 1798, and here and
in Munich and Hamburg she won great successes in tragic rôles
like Marie Stuart, Phèdre, Merope, Lady Macbeth, and Isabella in
The Bride of Messina, which gave her the reputation of being
“the German Siddons.” She retired in 1840 and lived in Augsburg
and Munich until her death on the 25th of February 1868.
She had married, in 1795, an actor, Stollmers (properly Smets),
from whom she separated in 1799. In 1804 she married the
tenor Friedrich Schröder, and on his death in 1825, an actor,
Kunst. Mme Schröder’s eldest daughter was the opera singer,
Wilhelmine Devrient-Schröder (q.v.).
See Ph. Schmidt, Sophie Schröder (Vienna, 1870); also Das Lexikon der deutscher Bühnen-Angehörigen.
SCHRÖDER-DEVRIENT, WILHELMINE (1804–1860),
German operatic singer, was born on the 6th of December 1804,
in Hamburg, being the daughter of the actress, Sophie Schröder
(1781–1868). Her first impersonation was at the age of fifteen
as Aricia in Schiller’s translation of Racine’s Phèdre, and in
1821 she was received with so much enthusiasm as Pamina in
Mozart’s Zauberflöte that her future career in opera was assured.
In 1823 she married Karl Devrient, but was separated from him
in 1828, afterwards making two other marriages. Meanwhile
she had maintained her popularity at Dresden and elsewhere.
She made her first Paris appearance in 1830, and she sang in
London in 1833 and 1837. As a singer she combined a rare
quality of tone with dramatic intensity of expression, which was
as remarkable on the concert platform as in opera. She died
in Coburg on the 26th of January 1860.
See E. von Glümer, Erinnerungen an Wilhelmine Schröder-Devrient (Leipzig, 1862); and A. von Wolzogen, Wilhelmine Schröder-Devrient (Leipzig, 1863).
SCHRÖTER, JOHANN HIERONYMUS (1745–1816), German
astronomer, was born at Erfurt on the 30th of August 1745.
Having studied law at Göttingen, he became chief magistrate
at Lilienthal, near Bremen, in 1788. Here he built an
observatory, and, equipped in 1785 by a 7-ft. reflector by
Herschel, and later by a 13-ft. reflector by Johann Gottlieb
Friedrich Schrader of Kiel, he made his famous observations
on the surface features of the moon and planets. His work
was ruined in 1813 by the French under Vandamme, who
destroyed his books, writings and observatory; he never
recovered from the catastrophe, and died on the 29th of August
1816.
SCHUBART, CHRISTIAN FRIEDRICH DANIEL (1730–1791),
German poet, was born at Obersontheim in Swabia (now the
kingdom of Württemberg) on the 24th of March 1739, and
entered the university of Erlangen in 1758 as a student of
theology. He led a dissolute life, and after two years' stay was
summoned home by his parents. After attempting to earn a
livelihood as private tutor and as assistant preacher, his musical
talents gained him the appointment of organist in Geislingen,
and subsequently in Ludwigsburg; but in consequence of
his wild life and blasphemy, which found expression in a parody
of the litany, he was expelled the country. He then visited in
turn Heilbronn, Mannheim, Munich and Augsburg. In the last-named
town he made a considerable stay, began his Deutsche
Chronik (1774–1778) and eked out a subsistence by reciting from
the latest works of prominent poets. Owing to a bitter attack
upon the Jesuits, he was expelled from Augsburg and fled to Ulm,
where he was arrested in 1777 and confined in the fortress of
Hohenasperg. Here he met with lenient treatment, and he
beguiled the time by a study of mystical works and in composing
poetry. His Sämtliche Gedichte appeared in two volumes at
Stuttgart in 1785–1786 (new edition by G. Hauff, Leipzig, 1884,
in Reclam’s Universal-Bibliothek); in this collection most of the
pieces are characterized by the bombast of the “Sturm und
Drang” period. He was set at liberty in 1787, at the instance of
Frederick the Great, king of Prussia, and expressed his gratitude
in Hymnus auf Friedrich den Grossen. Schubart was now
appointed musical director and manager of the theatre at Stuttgart,
where he continued his Deutsche Chronik and began his
autobiography, Schubarts Leben und Gesinnungen (2 vols.,
1791–1793), but before its completion he died at Stuttgart on the
10th of October 1791. His Gesammelte Schriften und Schicksale
appeared in 8 vols. (Stuttgart, 1839–1840).
See D. F. Strauss, Schubarts Leben in seinen Briefen (2 vols., 1849; 2nd ed., 1878); G. Hauff, Christian Daniel Schubart (1885); and E. Nägele, Aus Schubarts Leben und Wirken (1888).
SCHUBERT, FRANZ PETER (1797–1828), German composer,
was born on the 31st of January 1797, in the Himmelpfortgrund,
a small suburb of Vienna. His father, Franz, son of a Moravian
peasant, was a parish schoolmaster; his mother, Elizabeth Fitz,
had before her marriage been cook in a Viennese family. Of their
fourteen children nine died in infancy; the others were Ignaz
(b. 1784), Ferdinand (b. 1794), Karl (b. 1796), Franz and a
daughter Theresia (b. 1801). The father, a man of worth and
integrity, possessed some reputation as a teacher, and his
school, in the Lichtenthal, was well attended. He was also a fair
amateur musician, and transmitted his own measure of skill
to his two elder sons, Ignaz and Ferdinand.
At the age of five Schubert began to receive regular instruction from his father. At six he entered the Lichtenthal school where he spent some of the happiest years of his life. About the same time his musical education began. His father taught him the rudiments of the violin, his brother Ignaz the rudiments of the pianoforte. At seven, having outstripped these simple teachers, he was placed under the charge of Michael Holzer, the Kapellmeister of the Lichtenthal Church. Holzer’s lessons seem to have consisted mainly in expressions of admiration, and the boy gained more from a friendly joiner’s apprentice, who used to take him to a neighbouring pianoforte warehouse and give him the opportunity of practising on a better instrument than the poor home could afford. The unsatisfactory character of his early training was the more serious as, at that time, a composer had little chance of success unless he could appeal to the public as a performer, and for this the meagre education was never sufficient.
In October 1808 he was received as a scholar at the Convict, which, under Salieri’s direction, had become the chief music-school of Vienna, and which had the special office of training the choristers for the Court Chapel. Here he remained until nearly seventeen, profiting little by the direct instruction, which was almost as careless as that given to Haydn at St Stephen’s, but much by the practices of the school orchestra, and by association with congenial comrades. Many of the most devoted friends of his after life were among his schoolfellows: Spaun and Stadler and Holzapfel, and a score of others who helped him out of their slender pocket-money, bought him music-paper which he could not buy for himself, and gave him loyal support and encouragement. It was at the Convict, too, that he first made acquaintance with the overtures and symphonies of Mozart—there is as yet no mention of Beethoven—and between them and lighter pieces, and occasional visits to the opera, he began to lay for himself some foundation of musical knowledge.
Meanwhile his genius was already showing itself in composition. A pianoforte fantasia, thirty-two close-written pages, is dated April 8–May 1, 1810: then followed, in 1811, three long vocal pieces written upon a plan which Zumsteeg had popularized, together with a “quintet-overture,” a string quartet, a second pianoforte fantasia and a number of songs. His essay in chamber-music is noticeable, since we learn that at the time a regular quartet-party was established at his home “on Sundays
