Schoelcher, Victor
Schoelcher, Victor
Schoelcher, Victor, French statesman and writer on music; b. Paris, July 21, 1804; d. Houilles, Dec. 24, 1893. He was educated at the Collège Louis le Grand. As a radical republican, he was expelled from France upon the accession of Napoleon II. He lived in England until his return to Paris in 1870; was elected a member of the National Assembly in 1871 and was made a life senator in 1875. He collected musical instruments, scores, and rare books; also pursued an intensive study of the life of Handel. With the assistance of Rophino Lacy, he wrote the valuable work Haendel et son temps, which was pubi, in an Eng. tr. by J. Lowe as The Life of Handel (London, 1857); the first 4 chapters of the French MS were pubi, in La France Musicale (1860–62), and the entire MS was purchased by the Paris Cons. in 1881. In 1873 he gave his extensive private library to the Paris Cons. He also publ. La Modernité de la musique (Paris, 1881).
—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire