Johann Nepomuk Schelble

Johann Nepomuk Schelble (Hüfingen, 1789 – Hüfingen, 1837) was a German singer, conductor and teacher whose work at the head of choirs in Frankfurt am Main places him among the promoters of the Bach revival in the first half of the nineteenth century.

His training began as a boy chorister in Obermarchtal and continued at the gymnasium in Donaueschingen from 1803. Between 1808 and 1814 he worked mainly at the court and opera theatre in Stuttgart, where he sang tenor and baritone roles. From 1812 he also taught at the Royal Music Institute in that city, and in 1814 he undertook tours of German opera houses and of Vienna. Between 1817 and 1819 he was engaged by the Frankfurt theatre, from which he departed owing to ill health.

In 1818 he founded the Cäcilienverein in Frankfurt, modelled on the Berlin Sing-Akademie. The choir performed numerous choral works by Mozart, Handel, Palestrina and Scarlatti, among others, and the critics held it in high esteem. In 1829 he conducted the St Matthew Passion, in which he rewrote the recitatives in a more polished style, unlike Mendelssohn. He led the ensemble until his death. He also devised a method for teaching young musicians basic theory and sight-reading, which Lanz, Widmann and F. W. Rühle later adapted. His compositional output consists mainly of choral and vocal works, some chamber music and didactic exercises.