Grove's dictionary of music and musicians

—
;
SCALCHI SCALE 235
ornaments. The lowest three tiers have each
thirty -six boxes, and a royal box above the
entrance to the stalls. The fom-th and fifth
tiers have each thirty-nine boxes, and there are
four on each side of the proscenium, making a
total of 194 boxes, besides the large royal box
and the gallery, each box having a private
room at its back for the convenience of its
occupants.
The length of the whole building is 330 ft.,
and its width 122 ft. The height from the
floor to the ceiling Is 65 ft. The stage, with
the proscenium, is 145 ft. long and 54 wide
between the columns of the proscenium, but is
98 ft. wide farther behind. The ridotto, a
large hall for promenading between the acts,
is 82 ft. long and 30 ft. wide. The total
capapity of the house is 3600. This immense
institution permanently employs 922 persons
on its staff, distributed in the following way :
Artist-singers, 20 ; orchestra, 100 ;
band, 28 ;
choristers, 110 ; 'com parse,' 120; ballet, 140;
dressmakers and tailors, 150; doctors, 6 ; servants,
36, etc.
The gentlemen who provided the funds for
the building of La Scala enjoy the use of its
boxes at a nominal rental whenever the theatre
is open, each box having its owner. In all
other respects the theatre has been the property
of the town of Milan since 1872. The mimicipality
gi-ants to its lessee an annual sum of
£9800, and the owners of the boxes pay £2920
;
and thus La Scala enjoys an endowment of
£12,720 a year. The theatre is controlled by
a Commission elected by the Common Council
of Milan and the owners of its boxes.
Annexed to the theatre is a celebrated dancing
school, with sixty pupils, where the most famous
ballet-dancers have been trained, and a singing
school for about fifty choristers. Two charitable
institutions— / Filarmonici, founded by
Marchesi in 1783, and the Teairale, by Modrone"
in 1829—are also dependent for their income
upon the greatest theati-e of Italy.
The latest restoration of the theatre took place
in 1878. Its archives have been most carefully
preserved. Further information may be obtained
from the Teatro cdla Scala 1778-186S, by
Luigi Eomani (Milan, 1862) ; the Eeali Teairi
dl Milano, by Cambiasi (Eicordi, Milan, 1881);
and La Scala de Milan, by Henri de Curzon (ie
Guide Musical, 1906, pp. 538-40). L. R.
SCALCHI, Sofia, was bom Nov. 29, 1850,
at Turin ; received instruction in singing from
Augusta Boceabadati, and made her d^but 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
gi'eat success. At the Royal Italian Opera,
Covent Garden, she first appeared Nov. 6, of
the same year, as Azucena, and after that as Pierrotto
(' Linda '), Urbano, Un Caprajo ( ' Dinorah '),
etc. She sang there every year till 1890 inclusive.
Her voice was of fine quality in compass,
two octaves and a half from low F to B
in alt, enabling her to take both the mezzosoprano
and contralto parts in a great munber
of operas. In Sept. 1875 she married Signer
LoUi, 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 femminili,' July 15, 1871 ;
Meala in Masse's 'Paul et Virginie,' June 1,
1878 ;
Mrs. Page, July 14, 1877, and Fides, .
June 24, 1878, on the respective revivals of
Nicolai's 'LustigeWeiber,' and of 'LeProphfete'
also Arsace, Amneris, Mafieo Orsini, Siebel,
etc. One of her most successful impersonations
was Wania in Glinka's Vie ' pour le Czar. ' She
has had frequent engagements in Italy, St.
Petersburg, Moscow, Vienna, North and South
America, etc. a. c.
SCALE (from the Latin Scala, a staircase or
ladder ; Fr. Gammc; Ger. Tonleiter, i.e. soundladder
;
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 60 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 soimd
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 degi'ees. 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
sesthetical 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 6f 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
I
More complete Infoi-mation on the subject generaUy Jnar be
found in Helniholtz's Tonempfindvmgen, or in The PhUosophy of
Music, by W. Pole (London, isr9).