Johann Nepomuk Schelble
Johann Nepomuk Schelble (born May 16, 1789 in Hüfingen near Donaueschingen ; † August 6, 1837 there ) was a German conductor, composer, singer (tenor) and teacher. He is known as the founder of the Cäcilienchor in Frankfurt and as a pioneer in the performance of works by Johann Sebastian Bach.
Life
Johann Nepomuk Schelble came from an old bourgeois family from Hüfingen, who produced several painters and barrel painters, but also cultivated music. He was the only son among 14 children of Franz Josef Schelble, a "piano learner, barrel painter and disciplinarian" (administrator) of the Princely-Fürstenberg correctional institution in Hüfingen near Donaueschingen , where he grew up. His mother Katharina Götz came from an old family of oil millers. A sister, Maria Josepha Schelble, married the senior teacher, sculptor and entrepreneur Lucian Reich on May 17, 1813 in Hüfingen , they became the parents of the artists Lucian Reich and Franz Xaver Reich . Another sister, Katharina Schelble, married the cloth manufacturer Johann E. Nober. The descendants of both families, who also married each other, include u. a. the conductor, painter and writer Hortense von Gelmini . Schelble married Molli Müller from Königsberg in 1820. The marriage remained without children. Throughout his life he maintained a warm relationship with his relatives in Hüfingen, where in 1824/25 he acquired a "country estate", which he called his "Ruhetal". At the age of 48, Schelble died in the arms of his wife at the entrance to his Hüfinger house on Bräunlinger Strasse. His widow married Georg Konrad from St. Georgen in the Black Forest in 1842 .
education
Both of Schelble's parents were very musical; his father taught him to play the piano, his mother, a former choir singer, how to sing. 1800 to 1803 he was a choirboy in the Obermarchtal monastery , where he a. a. Sixtus Bachmann heard. When the monastery was closed in 1803, he returned to his family. There, in addition to the piano, he also played the piccolo in the town music of Hüfingen (even then he was inspired by the work “About Johann Sebastian Bach's Life and Artwork”). Schelble then attended grammar school in Donaueschingen , where he found the capable, albeit one-sidedly educated teacher, Weisse, with the support of Prince zu Fürstenberg (Swabian noble family) . There he took part in performances of the Fürstlich-Fürstenbergischer Hoftheater. At his father's request, Schelble entered the Fürstlich-Fürstenberg main archive and became a court chamber expedition. Against the resistance of his parents he wanted to go to Darmstadt to the composer Georg Joseph Vogler in 1807 , but then stayed after a short stay in Hechingen in Stuttgart, where the court singer Krebs became his father's friend.
Singer and teacher in Stuttgart
On the mediation of Krebs, Schelble was allowed to sing in front of the king in Stuttgart and at the age of 19 got a job as a royal opera singer (court singer) with an annual salary of 1,000 guilders. He stayed here for six years until 1814, when he sang as a tenor. He also studied composition, composed himself and taught at the royal music institute there from 1812. Schelble stood up for the early musical education of children throughout his life and developed his own method for developing hearing, which became known as "Schelbe's teaching method", but which was forgotten because Schelble left no records.
Singer and composer in Vienna, Pressburg and Berlin
From 1813 guest performances and tours through Austria and Prussia followed ; He had longer engagements in 1814 at the Hofopertheater in Vienna , in 1815 in Pressburg and in 1816 in Berlin . Schelble's voice was admired, with which he celebrated triumphs especially in Mozart operas, but he did not achieve a permanent position as an opera singer because of his stiff playing, but also for health reasons.
Singer, conductor and founder of the Cäcilienverein in Frankfurt
In 1816 Schelble sang at the opera on the mediation of his friend Clemens Brentano and also worked as conductor and music director of the vocal music department at the Music Academy in Frankfurt am Main , where the orchestra was subordinate to him from 1819; here he also became a member of a Masonic lodge . In 1819 he resigned from almost all offices and then only worked for the choir that he and his friends had founded in his apartment the year before. Since that time he has almost exclusively created compositions that are geared towards his choir. They were then premiered by Schelble's choir. He was renamed by Schelble in 1821 in " Cäcilienverein " (today: Cäcilien Choir) and from that year paid him a fixed salary. Above all, choral works by Handel , Cherubini , Mozart , Rossini , Palestrina , Durante , Scarlatti , Lotti etc. a. performed, since 1828 almost only the great choral works by Johann Sebastian Bach . The choir, which he directed himself, had 73 members just one year after it was founded and over 100 in 1832.
In 1822 the 13-year-old Felix Mendelssohn visited Bartholdy Schelble for the first time in Frankfurt. There was a lifelong friendship with him. Mendelssohn composed larger choral works in Schelble's apartment and sought his advice on new compositions. Schelble also knew Beethoven , in 1827 he bought a handwritten copy of the score of the Missa Solemnis for his choir . His nephews Franz Xaver Reich and Lucian Reich also lived in Schelble's house in Frankfurt . Schelble's students included a. the Hüfinger artists Franz Xaver Gleichauf and Rudolf Gleichauf .
Struggle for existence and death
After a decade, the support of the Cecilia Association by wealthy friends ran out in 1831 and Schelble had to continue the association at his own expense, which forced him to do a grueling teaching job in order to improve his income. In 1837, at the age of 48, his health was so ill that he went to his hometown of Hüfingen to relax , but died there after a few months.
Appreciation
“You can hardly believe how much a single person who wants something can have on everyone else; S. stands there all alone ... He has created a very important sphere of activity and has brought people further in the truest sense ... "
"People sing with so much fire and so together that it's a joy ..."
Franz Xaver Gleichauf describes his teacher Schelble very aptly with the quote:
"He saw composing to develop his own musical feeling and taste ..."
Aftermath
After Carl Friedrich Zelter and before Mendelssohn, who often represented Schelble as the conductor of the Cäcilienverein, Schelble was one of the rediscoverers and promoters of the Thomaskantor's music and was a pioneer in the founding of the Bach Society . Schelble's performance of the St. Matthew Passion by Johann Sebastian Bach came in 1829 - due to adverse circumstances - to Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy just two months earlier due to his now famous performance.
For a number of years the library of the Cecilia Society has been on permanent loan to the music and theater department of the Frankfurt University Library .
Works
- “Eternal rest”, prayer for the dead. - Bonn, Simrock 1823.
- Count Adalbert , opera
- German fair
Honors
Huefingen the Nepomuk Schelble road is named after him 47 ° 55 '20 " N , 8 ° 29' 35.1" O .
literature
- Lucian Reich : Johann Nepomuk Schelble , in: Wanderblüthen from the memorial book of a painter . Herder, Karlsruhe 1855, pp. 265-306
- Robert Eitner : Schelble, Johann Nepomuk . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 30, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1890, pp. 745-747.
- Oskar Bormann: Johann Nepomuk Schelble - His life, his work and his works , dissertation Frankfurt am Main 1926
- Hans-Josef Fritschi: Johann Nepomuk Schelble - A Hüfinger as the founder of the Frankfurt Cäcilienverein and rediscoverer of Bach , in: Almanach 1987, Heimatjahrbuch Schwarzwald-Baar-Kreis.
Web links
- Johann Nepomuk Schelble at Operissimo on the basis of the Great Singer Lexicon
- Short biography with portrait picture
- Further links to biographical articles and digitized compositions in the digital library of the Association for History and Natural History of the Baar
Individual evidence
- ↑ Franz Josef Schelble also wrote the humorous poem "Ferienbummlers Rundgang in der Baar", print a. Publishing house C. Revello, Hüfingen
- ^ Family tree of Hortense von Gelmini, private archive Erika von Gelmini, geb. Schmid (daughter of Hermine Fischerkeller from Hüfingen); Albert Köbele: Kinship book of the city of Hüfingen . Donaueschingen district in Baden. In: German local clan books . tape 30 . Self-published by the author, Grafenhausen bei Lahr in Baden 1962, No. 3225, p. 374 (also Volume 12 of the Badische Ortssippenbücher).
- ↑ General German biography: Johann Nepomuk Schelble
- ↑ Kuno Fritschi: Schelble died 175 years ago , in Südkurier August 2, 2012.
- ^ Oskar Bormann: Johann Nepomuk Schelble - His life, his work and his works , dissertation Frankfurt am Main 1926, p. 136.
- ↑ Kuno Fritschi: Schelble dies 1975 years ago. In: Südkurier , August 2, 2012,
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Schelble, Johann Nepomuk |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German conductor, singer (tenor) and teacher |
| DATE OF BIRTH | May 16, 1789 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Hüfingen near Donaueschingen |
| DATE OF DEATH | August 6, 1837 |
| Place of death | Hüfingen near Donaueschingen |