Johann Nepomuk Schelble

Best known as the founding conductor of Cäcilienverein (the Choir of Saint Cecilia, known today as the Cäcilienchor Frankfurt), he also helped revive interest in the work of Johann Sebastian Bach.

Johann Nepomuk Schelble was born in Hüfingen, a small town in the Black Forest in what is now the Schwarzwald-Baar District in the south of what would soon be the Grand Duchy of Baden but was still at that point part of the soon to end Holy Roman Empire.

Even as a young child, he demonstrated a particular gift for music, and so it was only a question of time before the boy's talent developed and – despite the interruption of frequent wars – found its expression.

Fearing the discouragement of his other pupils due to the great advances Nepomuk was making, the curate dismissed him from his studies with the explanation that he “lacked talent.” In 1800, the young Schelble became a choir boy in the royal diocese of Obermarchtal, at the time an important Swabian monastery.

Frustrated with protracted negotiations, Schelble went to Berlin, where in 1818 his friend Clemens Brentano procured him a place as first tenor.

Throughout his life, Schelble maintained close ties to his Hüfingen relatives, even acquiring a "small country estate" (Landgütchen) in 1824 or 1825, which he affectionately referred to as his "Tranquil Valley" (Ruhetal).

Schelble's health failed to improve, and at the age of 48, he died in his wife's arms at the entrance to his house on Bräunlinger Straße in Hüfingen.

In 1842, Schelble's widow married Georg Konrad, a man from Sankt Georgen im Schwarzwald, a town in Southwestern Baden-Württemberg, Germany found in the Schwarzwald-Baar-Kreis District.