Part 2 (1/2)

The events of the next three years of the Peninsular War were not witnessed by him, for the place remained in the hands of the French until 1812, when he saw Madrid evacuated by Bonaparte, and occupied on August 12 by Wellington and his troops after the battle of Salamanca.

With his main army the English general now advanced on Burgos, which, however, resisted all his a.s.saults; and the Anglo-Portuguese army had to retire once more into Portugal, while for the last time Joseph returned to the Spanish capital.

In the summer of 1813 Wellington broke up from his quarters, and, marching in a north-easterly direction, attempted to cut off all communication between France and Madrid. The movement completely overthrew the French domination in Spain, and Joseph Bonaparte fled with all the troops he could collect. Wellington followed, and came up with the French army at Vittoria, where he defeated them.

This victory, by which the invaders were driven back into France, was followed by a burst of national enthusiasm. The Spanish guerillas destroyed every isolated French post, and on October 8, 1813, Wellington crossed the French borders with his army.

A few months later Ferdinand VII. was restored to the throne of Spain.

Such were the events through which his native land was pa.s.sing during the childhood of Manuel Garcia, and which he was able to recall in after life.

What memories and experiences must he have had to pour into the ears of his parents when, in the summer of 1814, he was summoned to join them at Naples, where they had settled two years previously, having been forced to leave Paris owing to the strong feeling against Spain!

[Ill.u.s.tration: MANUEL GARCIA'S FATHER.]

CHAPTER III.

NAPLES.

(1814-1816.)

When Manuel Garcia joined his parents in Italy in the summer of 1814, being at the time in his tenth year, he found Naples under the rule of King Murat.

Here he saw for the first time his sister Maria, who was now six years old, while his father he found installed in the position of princ.i.p.al tenor in the chapel choir of King Murat. The elder Garcia had held this post for about two years, having been appointed immediately on his arrival from Paris. Since then he had been devoting himself to a complete study of the art of singing under his friend and teacher, Ansani.

This celebrated tenor was able to hand on to him the Italian vocal traditions of that ”Bel Canto” school which had come down from the old Neapolitan maestro, Porpora.

Soon after Manuel came to Italy he was taken by his father to see Ansani, who not only heard him sing, but gave him a few informal lessons. It was a case of winter and spring, for while the pupil was in his tenth year, the teacher was approaching his seventieth. With this fact we are brought face to face with an almost incredible link with the past. Ansani was nearly twenty when Porpora died, in his eighty-second year. A remark which Manuel Garcia once made rather points to the possibility that Ansani may have had a few lessons from Porpora himself.

Whether this was absolutely true I know not,--at any rate it may well have been so. Accept the supposition, and those who had the honour of studying under the ”centenarian” would at once be placed in a position to say that they were pupils of one whose master had himself received lessons from a man born in 1687. The possibility is a fascinating one.

Giovanni Ansani himself was an interesting personality. Born in Rome about the middle of the eighteenth century, it has been reported that he once met Bach. As, however, the German composer died in the year 1750, about the time that Ansani was still busying himself with the feeding-bottle--or its eighteenth-century equivalent--the story must be regarded with some suspicion, to say the least of it.

After a musical training received in Italy, he sang in various parts of the Continent. Twenty years before the close of the century he made his appearance in London, and at once took the first place. He soon left, however, on account of disputes with Roncaglia.

In 1781 he returned to England, and Dr Burney, who heard him sing in that year, has described him as the sweetest, albeit one of the most powerful, tenors of his generation. He was a spirited actor, and had a full, fine-toned, and commanding voice, while, according to Gervasoni, he had a very rare truth of intonation, great power of expression, and most perfect method both of voice emission and vocalisation. His wife, Maccherini, was also a singer, and accompanied him to London on his second visit. He himself was always noted for a quarrelsome disposition, and as a prima donna his wife had an almost equally bad temper. Such jealousy in fact existed between them that, when either was applauded for singing, the other was accustomed to go into the pit and hiss.

In 1784 Ansani appeared at Florence, and toured Italy. At the age of fifty he retired and settled in Naples, where he devoted himself to teaching. It was some twelve years later that he began to give lessons to the elder Garcia.

When Manuel joined his parents, he at once commenced to study singing under his father's guidance. The training of those days was a much slower process than that which is deemed necessary at the present time.

Months, indeed years, would be spent in the practice of simple solfeggi, to be followed by exercises in rhythm and studies for intonation.

The monotony of the first portion of this training evidently became very wearisome in time, for Senor Garcia would afterwards recall how one day, after being made to sing an endless variety of ascending scales, his desire for a change became so great that he could not resist bursting out, ”Oh dear! mayn't I sing down the scale even once?” The training of those days was indeed a hard one, but it turned out artists who had a very wonderful command over their voices.

After a time Manuel began to find these severe studies irksome. He seems, moreover, to have had no particular vocation for the lyrical stage, and the bent of his mind, even at that early period, had a leaning towards science.

As a boy, he had a soprano voice of beautiful quality, and it has been a.s.serted that during the stay in Italy he was appointed to a place in the cathedral choir. Absolute verification of this statement is practically impossible to obtain, though there seems no reason for doubting its truth. On the other hand, there is a strong likelihood that it may have been confused with the fact that the _elder_ Garcia (whose name was also Manuel) was in the chapel choir.

From this time the training of his voice continued practically without intermission, under his father's tuition, till his twentieth year. It was largely due to the fact that work was not stopped during that dangerous period at the commencement of p.u.b.erty, that he a.s.signed the break-down of his voice in after years.

The elder Garcia took the greatest delight and pride in the early education and musical training of his son, and among many other valuable lessons, he impressed upon him that a singer must not only know how to use his voice, but must, above all, be a thorough musician.