Imperial councillor, and secretary to the Chamber of Commerce at Prague, was born Oct. 22, 1819, at Petersdorf in Moravia. He began his musical career as head of a Society at Olmütz, and continued it at Prague, where in conjunction with Weiss, the superior of the Capuchins, and Krejci, he has revived much of the best old Italian church music. He has devoted his attention specially to the construction of the violin, in relation to which he has published very interesting treatises—On the Orchestral Instruments in the Paris[1] Exhibition of 1855; On the Cremonese instruments, à propos to the Vienna Exhibition of 1873, and 'the Italian Violin manufacture and its German origin.'[2] He has also published a valuable little pamphlet on Froberger. Dr. Schebek possesses a fine collection of ancient stringed instruments, Beethoven autographs, etc.
SCHEBEST, Agnes, born at Vienna, Feb. 15, 1813, became attached at a very early age to the Court Theatre at Dresden, first in the chorus, and then as singer of small solo parts. Here she had the inestimable advantage of frequently hearing and seeing the great Schroeder-Devrient. In 1833 she left Dresden for Pesth, and from 1836 to 41 starred throughout Germany with very great applause. Her voice was a fine mezzo-soprano, her style and method were good, her best parts heroic, with much energy and passion. In 1841 she married the great theologian Dr. David Strauss (himself a keen amateur, and author of an interesting paper on the Ninth Symphony), and died Dec. 22, 1869, at Stuttgart. She left an account of her career 'Aus dem Leben einer Künstlerin' (1857).
SCHECHNER-WAAGEN, Nanette, dramatic singer, born at Munich in 1806. She was employed in the chorus-scenes of the opera, and, on the occasion of Madame Grassini's visit, was chosen to second her in some selections from Cimarosa's 'Gli Orazzi e Curiazi.' Schechner's beautiful voice made a great impression, and won for her a patroness in the Queen of Bavaria. After some study in singing and in Italian, she appeared in Italian opera in Munich, until 1827, after which she devoted herself to German opera. In 1826 she was in Vienna, if a curious story, related by Schindler, of a scene in the theatre there, à propos to an air written for her by Schubert, may be believed. [See Schubert.] It is related by Fétis that, when she first appeared in Berlin in Weigl's 'Schweizerfamilie,' the first act was played to an almost empty house; but such enthusiasm did her Emmeline arouse in the few listeners, that the report of it spread to the neighbouring cafés during the entr'acte, a large audience was drawn to the theatre for the rest of the performance, and the singer's success was complete. Her Donna Anna, Euryanthe, Fidelio, Reiza, Vestalin and Iphigenie in Tauris excited great admiration in Berlin and Munich. In 1832 she married Waagen, a lithographer and painter.
Madame Schechner's voice was powerful, even massive in its tones, her acting was earnest and natural. She took a place in the first rank of German singers, but her brilliant career lasted no longer than ten years. A severe illness injured her voice; she retired from the stage in 1835, and died in 1860.
Mendelssohn heard her at Munich in 1830, and while he found her voice much gone off and her intonation false, says that her expression was still so touching as to make him weep.[3]
SCHEIBLER, Johann Heinrich, born at Montjoie or Montschau, near Aix-la-Chapelle, Nov. 11, 1777, died Nov. 20, 1837, silk manufacturer, after many travels, settled down at Crefeld, where he was first-assistant-Bürgermeister. In 1812–13, after some interesting experimental with Jews-harps, he turned his attention to the imperfections of existing means of tuning. He first tried a monochord, but finding that he could not always get the same note from the same division of his monochord, he endeavoured to help himself by beats, and discovered that each beat corresponded to a difference of two simple vibrations or one double vibration in a second. His plan was to fix the monochord by finding the stopped length which would give a note beating four times in a second with his own fork. Then, after endless trials and calculations, he found similar places for all the divisions of the scale, and finally from the monochord made forks for each note of the perfectly equally tempered scale By repeated comparisons with his forks he found that it was impossible to make a mathematically accurate monochord, or to protect it from the effects of temperature. He then hit upon the plan of inserting forks between the forks of his scale, from the lowest A of the violin to the open A, and counting the beats between them. It was this counting that was the trouble, but by highly ingenious mechanical contrivances he was enabled to complete the count of his fifty-two forks within from .0067 to .00083 beats or double vibrations in a second, and hence to tune a set of twelve forks so as to form a perfectly equal scale for any given pitch of A. The particulars of his forks, and the mode of counting them are contained in his little pamphlet 'Der physikalische und musikalische Tonmesser' (Essen, Badeker, 1834, p. 80, with lithographic plates),[4] from which the preceding history has been gathered. During his lifetime he issued four smaller tracts, showing how to tune organs by beats, which were collected after his death as H. Scheibler's Schriften, etc.' (Crefeld, Schmüller, 1838). This is quite out of print, but copies of the former book are still to be bought. His wonderful tonometer of fifty-two forks has completely disappeared. But another one, of fifty-six instead of fifty-two forks, which
- ↑ 'Die Orchester-Instrumente auf der Pariser Weltausstellung im Jahre 1855' (Vienna, Staatsdruckerel, 1858).
- ↑ 'Der Geigenbau in Italien und sein deutscher Ursprung' (Vienna, 1872 and 1874).
- ↑ Letter, June 6, 1836.
- ↑ 'The physical and musical Tonometer, which proves visibly by means of the pendulum, the absolute numbers of vibrations of musical tones, the principal kinds of combinational tones, and the most rigid exactness of equally tempered and mathematical just chords.'
