Grove's dictionary of music and musicians

;
;
SHRUBSOLE SHUDI 445
not exceed the limit of the ordinary player's
hand. M.
SHRUBSOLE, William, organist and hymn
composer. He was born at Canterbury in
January 1760, and was for seven years chorister
at the Cathedral there. He studied the organ
during this time, and was in 1782 appointed
organist to Bangor Cathedral. While here he
gave great offence to the Dean and Chapter by
his association with dissenters, and by ' frequenting
conventicles ' ; this led to his dismissal in
1783. He came to London, and immediately got
a post as organist at Lady Huntingdon's Chapel,
Spafields, Clerkenwell, which he held to his
death. This occurred Jan. 18, 1806. He was
buried in Bunhill Fields, and his monument
was restored in 1892, mainly by the exertions of
Mr. F. G. Edwards.
Slirubsole is best remembered by the composition
of the fine hymn tune 'Miles Lane,'
which appeared in the Gospel Magazine as early
as 1779. F. K.
SHUDI, famous harpsichord - maker, and
founder of the house of Broadwood. Burkat
Shudi, as he inscribed his name upon his instruments,
was properly Btiekhakdt Tschudi, and
was a cadet of a noble family belonging to Glarus
in. Switzerland.! He was born March 13, 1702,
and came to England in 1718, as a simple
journeyman joiner.^ When he tmned to harpsichord-making
is not known, but we are told
by Barney, who knew Shudi and old Xirkman
well, that they were both employed in London by
Tabcl,' a Fleming, and Bumey calls them
Tabel's foremen, perhaps meaning his principal
workmen. The anecdote given by Bumey, in
Eees's Cyclopcedia, of Kirkman's hasty wedding
with his master's widow, and acquisition with
her of Tabel's stock-in-trade, gives no infoi-mation
about Shudi, who, according to the Daily
Advertiser, Oct. 5, 1742, 'removed from Meard's
Sti-eet in Dean Street, Soho, to Great Pulteney
Street, Golden Square ' (the house occupied by
his descendants, the Broadwoods, until 1904).
'
Shudi was then styled Harpsichord Maker to
H.R.H. the Prince of Wales.' [See Broadwood ;
KlEKJIAN.]
Kirkman had the King's Arms for the sign of
his business in Broad Street, Carnaby Market
Shudi, the Plume of Feathers at the house now
33 Great Pulteney Sti-eet. We may trace the
choice of signs of these old colleagues and now
rival makers to the divided patronage of the
King (George II.) and Prince of Wales, who
were notoriously unfriendly. No doubt Handel's
friendship was of gi-eat value to Shudi ; few
harpsichords were then made, as owing to the
1 Of the Schwanden branch. Heinrich, born 1074, died 1149, made
Feodary of Glarus by the Lady Ontta, Abbess of Seckingeo, was the
first to adopt the surname Schudi («fc). The family tree goes back
to Johann, Mayor of Glanis, bom about 870.
2 See Schweaeritche Lexicon, Zurich, 179B, art. ' Tflchudi.'
3 Messrs. Broadwood's booka of 1777 mention a secondhand harpsichord
by Tabel (written Tablel. A harpsichord by Tabel with two
manuals, and very like a Kirkman, is in the possession of Helena,
Countess of Radnor.
relatively high price, and the great expense
and trouble of keeping them in order, they were
only for the rich. But the tuning and repairing
alone would keep a business going ; harpsichords
lasted long, and were submitted to restoration
and alteration that would surprise the amateur
of the present day.*
The Shudi harpsichord, formerly Queen Charlotte's,
now in Windsor Castle, is dated 1740.
It has a Lute ' ' stop, a pleasing variation of
timbre, and, like the pedal, of English invention
in the previous century.
James Shudi Broadwood (MS. Notes, 1838) accredits
his grandfather Shudi with the gift of a
harpsichord to Frederick the Great, Shudi being
a staunch Protestant, and regarding Frederick
as the leader and champion of the Pi'otestant
cause. Mr. Broadwood, moreover, believed
that a portrait of Shudi, which remained until
a few years since in one of the rooms in Great
Pulteney Street, represented him as engaged in
tuning the identical harpsichord thus bestowed.
Shudi'swife and two sons are also in thepicture, a
reproduction of which serves as the frontispiece
to Eimbault's History of the Pianoforte. The
elder boy, apparently nine years old, was born
in 1736. This synchronises the picture with
Frederick's victory and the peace concluded the
following year (1745). But the writer could
not find this instrument either in Potsdam or
Berlin in 1881. The tradition about it is,
however, strengthened by the fact that in
1766 Frederick obtained from Shudi two
special double harpsichords for his New Palace
at Potsdam, where they still remain. lustead
of the anglicised ' Shudi, ' they are accurately
inscribed Tschudi. ' ' One has silver legs, etc.
the other rests upon a partially gilded stand.
Following Bm'ney, who however only describes
the first one, they appear to have been placed
in the apartments of the Princess Amelia, and
the Prince of Prussia. These instmments, like
all Shudi's which still exist, are of the soundest
possible workmanship, discrediting Burney's
assertion of the want of durability of his harpsichords,*
a reproach, however, which Burney goes
on to say could not be alleged against Shudi's
son-in-law and successor Broadwood. He however
praises Shudi's tone as refined and delicate.
The Potsdam harpsichords were made with
Shudi's Venetian Swell, for which the pedals
still exist, but it was probably not to the
German taste of the time, and was therefore
removed. Hopkins, in his comprehensive
work upon the Organ, says the original organ
swell was the 'nagshead,' a mere shutter, invented
by Abraham Jordan in 1712. But to
imitate its eff'ect in the harpsichord we know
i
While pianofortes are now kept in tune by yearly contracts, the
researches of Mr. William nale in Messrs. Brondwood's old books,
show that harpsichords in the 18th century were tuned by yuarferiy
contracts!
5 Bumey gives as his authority Snetzler the organ-builder, who
attached ot^ane to some of Shudi's harpsichords, and was, moreover,
Shudi's intimate friend and executor. Sbudi left him hie ring, containing
a portrait of Frederick the Great.