Grove's dictionary of music and musicians

'
SHIFT SHIKREPF 443
demonstrates its use in The Division, Viol
(second edition, London, 1667), wherein he
states, under ' The ordering of the fingers in
gradiMl notes, ' that ' In any point of Division
which reaches to the lower Frets or beyond them ;
the highest note thereof is always stopt either
with the third or fourth finger.' The first
tentative advances towards the adoption of the
' shift ' took the form of an extension of the
little finger in the first position, and the feat
of touching the first C on the chanterelle of the
violin by this means was looked upon as a
daring undertaking. As a natural consequence,
the executant's abiUty rested almost entirely
upon his manner of playing Vvi, and so sensational
was the efifeot of its advent upon the
listeners that an involuntary murmur of Gare
'
I'ut,' was wont, it is said, to escape from the
lips of his listeners. Beyond a' doubt, many
professional violinists could shift in the first
three positions by the year 1655, for Mersenne
(Harmonie Viiiverselle) speaks with admiration
of those players who could mount up- to the
octave of each string. Then in 1658 Anthony
Wood in his Life describes the wonderful playing
of Thomas Baltzar—the Paganini of his
day—whom he saw run up his ' fingers to the
end of the finger-board of the violin and run
them back insensibly and all with alacrity and
in very good tune, which I am sure, ' says he,
'any in England never saw the like before.'
To Signer Mattaei—who came to England in
1672—is accorded the invention of that lite
noire of violinists, the 'half shift,' or second
position. But although the ' shift ' was favoured
by professional players of exceptional ability
at this period, its adoption was far from general,
owing to the confused methods of holding the
violin which continued well into the next
century. Lully, who was himself a wonderful
violinist, gives an idea of the capacity of the
ordinary orchestral technique, by choosing a test
piece for those desiring to gain the dignus '
est
intrare ' of his band, in which no C on the chanterelle
occurred. For thirty years the entr'acte
from his opera of Atys ' ' served this purpose.
Even in Leopold Mozart's time the question of
holding the violin was far from settled, for, in
his Violin School (1756), he mentions that
there are two ways of holding the violin, the
first being ' against the breast '—which position
he regards as an obstacle to shifting,'—and '
the
second is to place the violin under the chin and
rest it on the shoulder. The best professional
players adopted the latter method, and their
example finding ' favour with lesser artists was
the means of abolishing the 'breast position'
and bringing the ' shift ' into general use.
The ' shift ' on the violoncello was doubtless
derived from the violin, and is governed by the
same rules. The thumb movement,' ' or ' shifting
of the thumb' which was the means of
facilitating the use of the high positions on the
violoncello, was first employed—and it is said
invented— by the French artist Berteau in the
first half of the 18th century.
Huet, FeUx, Mude sur les diffirentes £coles
de Violon, Chalons-sur-Mame, 1880 ; Mengy, A.,
Quelques Observations sur I'art du Violon, Paris,
1888 ; Koeokert, G., Les Prineipes Sationnels
de la Technique du Violon, Leipzig, 1904
Anon., The Violin, How to master it,
;
Edinburgh,
1889 ; Courvoisier, Carl, Technics of
Violin-Playing, London, 1899. o. R.
SHIFT, in trombone playing, signifies an
alteration in position of the movable slide, by
means of which the fundamental length of the
instrument is increased. The home position
of the slide is known as the No. 1 position,
'
and the successive shifts, lowering the pitch
by successive semitones, give respectively the
second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh
'
positions,' the number of the position being
' '
thus always one higher than the number of
semitones by which the pitch is lowered (see
Trombonb). d. j. b.
SHINNEE, EMiLr, born at Cheltenham,
July 7, 1862, began the study of the violin at
the age of seven. In 1874 she went to Berlin,
and for two years studied under H. Jacobsen, a
pupil of Joachim's, female violinists not being
at that time admissible to the Hochschule. In
1876 this restriction was taken away, and Miss
Shinner was among the first admitted. In
October 1877 she became a pupil of Joachim's,
and remained with him for three years. In
Feb. 1881, she came to London, and after being
heard at several private concerts (among others
at one given by the Bach Choir), made her
debut at a concert given by Mr. H. E. Bird in
the Kensington Town Hall, in Brahms's Sonata
in 6, etc. At the London Musical Society's
concert of June 29, 1882, she played David's
concerto in E minor with great success, and
from that time held a high position among
English artists, her style being pure and refined,
and her power of interpreting works of a high
intellectual order being very remarkable. She
appeared at the Popular Concert on Feb. 9,
and at the Crystal Palace on March 8, 1884 ;
in 1887 she organised a successful quartet-party
of ladies. In January 1889 she married Capt.
A. F. Liddell. She died July 17, 1901. m.
SHIEREFF, Jane, bom 1811, soprano singer,
pupil of Thomas Welsh, appeared at Covent
Garden, Dec. 1, 1831, as Mandane in Arne's
' Artaxerxes,' with great success. In 1832 she
sang at the Concert of Ancient Music, the Philharmonic
Concert, and Gloucester Festival, and
in 1834 at the Westminster Abbey Festival.
Her engagement at Covent Garden continued
from 1831 to 1834-35. In 1835 she commenced
an engagement at Drury Lane, but in 1837
returned to Covent Garden. In 1838 she went
to America, in company with Wilson, E. Seguin,
and Mrs. E. Seguin, where she became a universal