Grove's dictionary of music and musicians

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composers.
676 STATUE, LA STAVE
collected and published the most valuable
materials for the biographies of the chief Russian
His monographs upon Glinka,
Moussorgsky, Borodin, Cui and Eimsky-Koraakov
are Indispensable to those who desire
to study the development of Russian national
music. His influence on contemporary Russian
art was immense, and can best be realised in
the number of works undertaken at his suggestion,
and dedicated to him. His collected works
from 1847 to 1886 were published by his admirers
in a jubilee edition (3 vols. St. Petersburg,
1894), and a fourth volume, dedicated to Count
Tolstoi, was added in 1905. R. N.
STATUE, LA. Op&a-oomique in three acts,
text by Carr^ and Barbier ;
music by Ernest
Keyer. Produced at the Op^ra-Coraique, Paris,
April 11, 1861. Revived as a grand opera at
the Opera, 1903.
STAUDIGL, Joseph, one of the most distinguished
and accomplished singers of modern
times, born April 14, 1807, at WoUersdorf, in
Lower Austria. His father destined him for
his own calling, that of Imperial huntsman
(Revierjager), but for this he was not sufficiently
strong, and in 1816 he entered the Gymnasium
of Wiener Neustadt, where his beautiful soprano
voice soon attracted attention in the church.
In 1823 he attended the philosophical college
at Krems, and was persuaded, in 1825, to enter
upon his noviciate in the Benedictine Monastery
at Melk. Here his voice, which had developed
into a fine sonorous bass, was invaluable for the
church services. A vague impulse drove him
In Sept. 1827 to Vienna to study surgery, but
money ran short, and he was glad to accept a
place in the chorusat the KarnthnerthorTheatre.
Here he took occasional secondary parts, until
the sudden illness of one of the solo singers
brought him forward as Pietro in the Stumme
'
von Portioi ' (' Masaniello '), after which all the
principal parts fell into his hands. High as
was his position on the stage, he was still greater
as a singer of oratorio and church music. In
1831 he was admitted to the Court Chapel, and
in 1837 sang for the first time at the great
musical festival of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde
in the ' Creation.' In 1833 he sang in
the Seasons ' ' for the Tonkiinstler Societat, a
society to which he rendered the greatest services.
Though not even a member, he sang at no less
than eighty of its concerts, and absolutely declined
to accept any fee. Differences with the
management of the Court Theatre led him to
the Theatre an der "Wien ' ' on its reopening in
1845. There he acted as chief manager, and,
with Pischek and Jenny Lind, entered on a series
of fresh triumphs. He returned to the Court
Theatre in 1848, but only to expose himself to
fresh annoyance up to February 1854, when an
abrupt dismissal embittered the rest of his life.
His last appearance in public was in ' St. Paul,'
at the Tonkiinstler Societiit, on Palm Sunday,
1856. A few days after, insanity developed
itself, and he was taken to an asylum, which he
never quitted alive. His repeated tours abroad
spread his fame far and wide, and he had many
admirers In England, which he often visited,
and where he sang in English. He created the
part of ' Elijah ' at the Birmingham Festival of
1846, singing the music at sight at the grand
rehearsal. As a singer of Schubert's Lieder he
was without a rival. He died March 28, 1861,
and half Vienna followed him to the grave.
His youngest son, Joseph, born March 18,
1850, possesses a flexible sonorous baritone,
which he cultivated with success under Rokitansky
at the Vienna Conservatorium till 1874,
when he left. He made his mark as an oratorio
singer in the principal towns of Germany and
Switzerland. In 1875-83 he was frequently
engaged at the Court Theatre of Carlsruhe, and
was chamber-singer to the Grand Duke. [In
1 885 he married Gisele Koppmayer, an Austrian,
pupil of Mme. Marches!, who was a favourite
contralto singer in opera at Hamburg, Berlin,
Bayreuth, etc. She and her husband sang
together in a concert tour in America (Musik.
WochenUatt, 1888, p. 349). A. c] c. r. p.
STAVE (Lat. Systema ; Ital. Sistema ; Germ.
Liniensysteni, System ; Fr. Portie ; Eng. Stave,
Staff). A series of horizontal lines, so arranged
that the signs used for the representation of
musical notes may be written upon or between
them.
Though the etymology of the term cannot be
proved, its derivation from the familiar Saxon
root is too obvious to admit of doubt. Its use,
as applied to the verses of a Psalm, Canticle, or
ditty of any kind, is very ancient, and, as we
shall presently show, the music sung to such
verses was originally noted down in such close
connection with the verbal text that it may fairly
be said to form part of it. When a system of
lines and spaces was engrafted on the primitive
form of notation, the old term was still retained
; and we now apply it to this, even more
familiarly than to the verse itself. The best
proof that this is the true derivation of the tei-m
lies in the fact that Morley calls the Stave a
Verse, and describes the Verse as consisting of
Rules 1 and Spaces. [For the early forms of
notes see Notation.]
About the year 900 a single horizontal line
was drawn across the parchment to serve as a
guide to the position of the Neumes written
upon, above, or below it. This line, the germ
of our present Stave, has exercised more direct
influence upon the art of notation than any
other invention, either of early or modem date.
It was originally drawn in red. All Neumes
placed upon it were understood to represent the
note F. A Neume written immediately above
it represented G ; one immediately below it,
E. The places of three signs were, therefore,
1 '
Rules,' i.e, lines. Fiinters still employ the same teim.