Part 1 (1/2)

Garcia the Centenarian And His Times.

by M. Sterling Mackinlay.

PREFACE.

In presenting this Memoir of Don Manuel Garcia, I wish to thank those friends and pupils of the Maestro who have a.s.sisted me with reminiscences, photographs, and other material. But especially I would thank Mrs Alec Tweedie for the kind way in which she read through the MS., when it was still in a rough state, and made many invaluable suggestions with regard to its arrangement and improvement generally.

M. S. M.

OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE MUSICAL CLUB, LEICESTER SQUARE, _March 1908_.

FIRST PERIOD

PREPARATION

(1805-1830)

CHAPTER I.

INTRODUCTORY.

MANUEL GARCIA, the Centenarian.

How much do those words imply!--words which it is impossible to pen without a feeling of awe.

Garcia, a member of that family of Spanish musicians whose combined brilliancy has probably never been equalled in the annals of the musical world. The father and founder of the family, renowned as one of the finest tenors of his day; as a prolific composer, and as a singing teacher of distinguished ability, as well as conductor and impressario; in fact, a fine vocalist and an equally fine musician, which in those days was something of a _rara avis_.

The eldest daughter, Maria Malibran, a contralto whose brief career was one series of triumphs, while her gifts as a composer were shared by her sister, Pauline Viardot-Garcia, whose singing drew forth the praise and admiration of all, and whose retirement from the stage and concert platform brought with it fresh honours in the field of teaching, wherein she showed herself a worthy exponent of the high ideals of the Garcias.

And what of Manuel himself? The subject of our Memoir has a triple claim that his name should be inscribed on the roll of fame. As professor of singing, he is acknowledged to have been the greatest of his time. In the musical firmament he has been the centre of a solar system of his own,--a sun round which revolved a group of planets, whose names are familiar to all: Jenny Lind, Maria Malibran, Mathilde Marchesi, Henriette Nissen, Charles Santley, Antoinette Sterling, Julius Stockhausen, Pauline Viardot, and Johanna Wagner--these are but a few of them.

Many, too, out of the number have themselves thrown off fresh satellites, such as Calve, Eames, Henschel, Melba, Scheidemantel, van Rooy. One and all have owed a debt of eternal grat.i.tude to Manuel Garcia and his system.

Again, as a scientific investigator he has given us the Laryngoscope, which Huxley placed among the most important inventions of the medical world. Indeed, it is no figure of speech, but a statement of demonstrable fact, that millions have been benefited by his work.

Thirdly, as a centenarian, he is without question the most remarkable of modern times.

Of the men who have attained to that rare age, those who possess any claim upon our interests beyond their mere weight of years are but a comparative handful.

Of musicians one alone has approached him in longevity, Giacomo Ba.s.sevi Cervetto, who died on January 14, 1783, within a few days of his 101st birthday, but with little distinction beyond this fact. As to the rest who go to make up the tale of the world's centenarians of recent years, it has been generally a case of the survival of the unfittest--

”In second childishness and mere oblivion, Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.”

How different Manuel Garcia when he celebrated his 100th birthday: in the early morning, received by the King at Buckingham Palace; at noon, entering the rooms of the Royal Medical Society with short, quick steps, walking unaided to the dais, mounting it with agility and then sitting for an hour, smiling and upright, while receiving honours and congratulations from all parts of the globe. Which of those who were present will ever forget how he attended the banquet that same evening, in such full possession of his faculties and bodily strength as to make his own reply to the hundreds a.s.sembled to celebrate the occasion? Could anything have been finer than this sight of Grand Old Age?

Now the fame of each individual member of the Garcia family would seem to demand that, in addition to the story of the Maestro's own career, considerable details should be given regarding that of his father and sisters. Surely the three last have claims to our attention beyond the mere fact of being in the one case a parent who exercised a very important influence upon Manuel Garcia's character and choice of career in early days, and who was, moreover, the fountainhead from which flowed the stream of musical talent that in the children broadened out into so grand a river,--in the other case, the sisters, who were bound not only by ties of kins.h.i.+p but by a debt of grat.i.tude for the part which their brother played in their vocal training.