A Master Singer

With the death of Gustave Garcia, which took place yesterday in his 89th year, there has passed away one who in his day had played many parts, and played them with great distinction, though barely known even to the older generation to today. The great fame of his father, Manuel Garcia—who died in 1906 in his 102 year, the inventor of the laryngoscope, author of the now classic “Traite complete de l’Art du Chant,” teacher of Santley and many celebrated singers—somewhat eclipsed his own less spectacular career. But those of us who worked with him and in later years were admitted into his private circle knew well the value of that privilege; we knew that with him, and almost with him alone, was the true tradition of “bel canto”; that, in a sense, he was that tradition. Moreover, we were taught to realise that that tradition was not merely concerned with the proper singing of the florid arias of Donizetti and Bellini and Verdi, but with the German dramas of Wagner, with German Lieder, with the songs of Fauré and Debussy and the modern Russians, with the songs of any school or period. That much-abused term, “coloratura,” was simply the light and shade of fine singing expected alike for the deepest basso profundo and the highest soprano. In his own lifetime he saw many changes of musical fashion, and as a cosmopolitan he regarded them with sympathetic if somewhat detached interest. His was the kind of catholic vision that could see and appreciate the characteristic thing in any epoch, unblinded by prejudices or predilections. His historic sense was such that for him all art was of two kinds—good and bad; the good for all time, the bad to be consigned to oblivion. What he demanded first and last in a song was that it should be singable—a thing of fine vocal line, let the mood be what it may. One evening after dinner, only a few months ago, his son Albert sang, and I played the accompaniments of, some characteristic specimens of modern songs. Garcia, reclining on a sofa in the far corner of the room, listened without making any comment until we had finished the third song—a particularly jagged, abrupt, and freakish thing—when from the depths of the sofa came the gentle question, “Is that a song?” In the very wistfulness of that question there was a world of criticism.

Artistic Traditions

When it is remembered that Gustave’s grandfather—Manuel del Popolo Vicente Garcia—was born just over 150 years ago (Jan. 22, 1775), it will be realised how the traditions of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries were bridged over and absorbed in this remarkable succession of professional musicians. Manuel the elder was born at Seville when Mozart was 19. He made his début on the stage at Cadiz at the age of 17, migrated to Madrid, where he established a reputation as singer and composer; to Paris, where his reputation was enhanced; to Italy, where he continued his successes the while he studied the Italian method on the spot. He visited America in 1825 with an operatic company, in which were his son Manuel (the centenarian) and his daughter Maria, better known subsequently as Madam Malibran—one of the greatest operatic singers of all time. He toured as far west as Mexico, was robbed of all his properties and nearly £6,000 in gold when on his way to Vera Cruz; settled again in Paris in 1829, and died in 1832, the most famous teacher of his day. He wrote nearly forty operas, none of which, however, has survived its day. (His other daughter, Pauline Viardot, 1821-1910, rose to eminence, both as singer and actress.) When Manuel the elder died Manuel the younger was 27 years of age, and had already crammed more musical and operatic experience into his life than usually fell to young men in those days of slow travel. It is not necessary to recount the story of that brilliant and unique career, which may be read in most biographical dictionaries and musical histories.

Gustave, son to Manuel the younger, was born in Milan on Feb. 1, 1837. When he was about 6 months old his parents returned to their home in Paris, and Gustave remained there until he was 17, receiving his education at the College of St. Barbe. In 1854 he came to England, and was sent to a private school, kept by a clergyman, to learn English, remaining there for six months. His father had decided to make an engineer of him, but he showed no more aptitude for that than for the shipping business of which he had (after a term at an engineering school) a brief taste in Manchester. It was about this time that his aunt, Pauline Viardot, came to Manchester to fulfill some concert engagements. Young Gustave appealed to her, told her of his incapacity and distaste of business, and begged her to ask his father to allow him to follow the profession of a singer. This she did, his father consented, and he was packed off to Paris to study, first with Bucine, a baritone, and then with Bataille, a bass, both well known artists of the Opéra Comique. He remained in Paris a year, returned to London to study with his father for three years and made his debut in the title rôle of “Don Giovanni” at Her Majesty’s Theatre at the age of 23. After a short season at that theatre he went to Italy and sang in various operas at La Scala, Milan. At the Carcano Theatre he produced “Don Giovanni,” which had not been performed in Milan for thirty-two years. For five years he toured that country, singing at the principal theatres, with an interval of five months at the Opera House, Athens. At the age of 29 he returned to London, giving several concerts in Paris on his way hither, and shortly afterwards married Miss Linas Marorelli—an accomplished soprano with whom he gave many concerts in London and the provinces. in 1880 he was appointed professor at the Royal Academy of Music, remaining there for ten years; he taught at the Guildhall School of Music from 1883 till 1910; and in 1884 he joined the staff of the Royal College of Music, teaching there until his final brief illness.

Later Years

Thus for three long generations the Garcia family were, so to speak, part and parcel of the history of music in Europe, and to-day, when one laments the passing of Gustave, the chain is not yet broken. Wherever opera was, there was the name of Garcia honoured, even when changed into Malibran and Viardot. When Gustave settled down to teach at the three great English schools he virtually became a recluse. He—by upbringing a fine linguist—never courted society; he had no vanity, no ambitions of the more obvious kind. Had he chosen so he might have been the most fashionable teacher of the last forty years; the dynasty was his. But he loved the simple things of life, he had a fine sense of humor, and anything in the nature of parade displeased him. One summer term about twenty years ago he asked my advice about a place in which to spend a fishing holiday in Ireland. He fancied the North West Coast—some post from which he might begin a solitary tour, stopping three or four days here and three or four days there. I told him of a remote place, inland, where a stream drained three lakes, with excellent salmon trout at a shilling per rod per day. He stayed there six weeks, supremely happy; and when one day I walked over from Kilmacrenan I found the handsome foreign gentleman had already greatly endeared himself to the country folk, who marveled at his yodeling (at 67!)—a pretty habit he indulged in as he trudged home from along the valley at dusk. Up to the end he had the voice of a young man, a resonant and beautiful baritone with top G’s and A’s clear as a bell. On the eve of his 88th birthday and without preliminary advertisement he turned up at a pupil’s concert given by his son Albert at the Wigmore Hall, and sang the “Noël” of Adolphe Adam. The occurrence was practically unnoticed by the Press, but the audience were electrified, hardly believing the evidence of their eyes and ears. All talk of pupils was silenced. It was of the veteran master they spoke. And probably the last reference to Gustave Garcia as an active singer that appears in any English newspaper appeared in these columns. And it contained these lines: “To hear this wonderful old man of close upon 90 fill Wigmore Hall with a tone of quite incredible quality was to realise that the age of marvels is not yet passed. Truly there were giants in those days, and we may be grateful that some of them still remain to point the moral to a younger generation addicted to false gods and even falser intonation.”

—Herbert Hughes, The Daily Telegraph, “Gustave Garcia: A Master Singer,” Saturday, June 13, 1925, p. 6.