Page:A Dictionary of Music and Musicians vol 3.djvu/247

SCALA, LA.

La Scala has always been renowned for its splendid and gorgeous ballets, amongst which were most successful—

We should unduly prolong this article were we to mention the names of all the great artists who have gained their merited applause on the boards of La Scala. It is sufficient to state that few great artists can be found within the last hundred years who have not deemed it an honour and a duty to appear on that celebrated stage, and win the approval of the Milanese public. Further information may be obtained from the 'Teatro alla Scala 1778–1862,' by Luigi Romani (Milan, 1862); and the 'Reali Teatri di Milano' by Cambiasi (Ricordi, Milan, 1881).

Besides La Scala, Milan boasts of several other theatres, where operas are performed either exclusively, or at certain seasons of the year, instead of dramas. These theatres are, La Canobbiana, Il Carcano, Dal Verme, Santa Redegonda, Re Nuovo, and Fossati. At the Filodrammatici and San Simone are given amateur performances of operatic and orchestral music, to which admission is obtained only by invitation. The Milanese Società del Quartetto has obtained great reputation for its masterly performances of classical music, especially in recent years. [ L. R. ]

SCALCHI,, was born Nov. 29, 1850, at Turin; received instruction in singing from Augusta Boccabadati, and made her début at Mantua in 1866 as Ulrica in 'Un Ballo in Maschera.' She afterwards sang at Verona, Bologna, Faenza, Nice, etc., and in England for the first time Sept. 16, 1868, at the Promenade Concerts, Agricultural Hall, with very great success. At the Royal Italian Opera, Covent Garden, she first appeared Nov. 5 of the same year, as Azucena, and after that as Pierrotto (Linda), Urbano, Un Caprajo (Dinorah), etc. She is a great favourite at that theatre, and has remained there until the present time. Her voice is of fine quality and of the compass of two octaves and a half from low F to B in alt, enabling her to take both the mezzo-soprano and contralto parts. She is also a fair actress. In Sept. 1875 she married Signor Lolli, a gentleman of Ferrara. Among her repertoire may be named Leonora (Favorita), which she played July 19, 1871, at Mario's farewell appearance; Estelle in Campana's Esmeralda, June 14, 1870; Leonora in Cimarosa's 'Le Astuzie feminili,' July 15, 1871, Meala in Massé's 'Paul et Virginie,' June 1, 1878; Mrs. Page, July 14, 77; and Fides, June 24, 78, on the respective revivals of Nicolai's Lustige Weiber, and of Le Prophète; also Arsace, Amneris, Maffeo Orsini, Siebel, etc. She has had frequent engagements in Italy, St. Petersburg, Moscow, Vienna, etc. [ A. C. ]

SCALE (from the Latin Scala, a staircase or ladder; Fr. Gamme; Ger. Tonleiter, i.e. sound-ladder; Ital. Scala). A term denoting the series of sounds used in musical compositions.

The number of musical sounds producible, all differing in pitch, is theoretically infinite, and is practically very large; so that in a single octave a sensitive ear may distinguish 50 to 100 different notes. But if we were to take a number of these at random, or if we were to slide by a continuous transition from one sound to another considerably distant from it, we should not make what we call music. In order to do this we must use only a certain small number of sounds, forming a determinate series, and differing from each other by well-defined steps or degrees. Such a series or succession of sounds is called a scale, from its analogy with the steps of a ladder.

It is unnecessary here to enter into the æsthetical reason for this; it must suffice to state that all nations, at all times, who have made music, have agreed in adopting such a selection, although they have not always selected the same series of sounds. As a first step towards the selection all musical peoples appear to have appreciated the intimate natural relation between sounds which lie at that distance apart called an octave; and hence replicates of notes in octaves are found to form parts of all musical scales. The differences lie in the intermediate steps, or the various ways in which the main interval of the octave has been substituted.

For modern European music, in ascending from any note to its octave above, we employ, normally, a series of seven steps of unequal height, called the diatonic scale, with the power of interposing, accidentally, certain intermediate chromatic steps in addition. The diatonic scale is of Greek origin, having been introduced about the middle of the sixth century The main divisions of the octave were at the intervals called the fifth and the fourth, and the subdivisions were formed by means of two smaller divisions called a tone and a hemitone respectively. The tone was equal to the distance between the fourth and the fifth, and the hemitone was equal to a fourth minus two tones. The octave was made up of five tones and two hemitones, and the entire Greek diatonic scale of two octaves, as settled by Pythagoras, may be accurately represented in modern notation as follows:—

