Garcia the Centenarian And His Times Part 17

In 1840, the year of Paganini's death, three operas of Donizetti saw light, "La Fille du Regiment," "Lucrezia Borgia," and "La Favorita."

In the next year Auber's "Les Diamants de la Couronne" was performed; and a twelve-year-old musician, newly arrived from Moscow, was given an opportunity of playing the piano to Liszt, and of being patted on the head, while he listened to words of warm encouragement. And the name of the boy-pianist? Anton Rubinstein, who died more than twelve years ago, at the age of sixty-five.

In 1842, the year in which Ma.s.senet was born, Meyerbeer's opera "Le Prophete" was finished, which was destined not to be produced at the Grand Opera House till seven years later.

In 1843 Donizetti's "Don Pasquale" was brought out, and in the following year Flotow's "Stradella" and Felicien David's grand ode-symphony "Desert." It saw, moreover, the completion by Richard Wagner of "Der Fliegende Hollander," as the next year, in which Tom Hood died, saw that of "Tannhauser."

In 1847 the Parisian public witnessed for the first time Flotow's "Martha," while in the last year of Garcia's sojourn in the capital, Nicolai's "Merry Wives of Windsor" and Wagner's "Lohengrin" were finished; Offenbach was appointed _chef d'orchestre_ at the Theatre Francais (this being long before "La Grande d.u.c.h.esse" and "Madame Favart" had been set down on paper); Gounod was still in his twenties, and had not yet even composed his first opera, while "Faust" was not to be brought out for eleven, and "Romeo et Juliette" for just on twenty years. As for Bizet, he was a mere boy of ten.

Allusion has already been made to George Sand, Henry Murger, and Alfred de Musset. One must add to the literary circle of that time such personalities as these: Balzac, who first tasted success with the publication of 'Les Derniers Chouans,' about a year after Senor Garcia had arrived from Mexico, soon following this up with the earliest of his great works, 'La Peau de Chagrin'; Theophile Gautier, whose first long poem, 'Albertus,' was published about the same time, to be followed, in 1835, by the celebrated novel, 'Mademoiselle de Maupin,' with its defiant preface; Alfred de Vigny, whom Manuel Garcia, as a young man of twenty-five, saw abandon for good in 1830 the publication of his exquisite poetry, and confine himself after that date to works in prose alone.

Then there were Alphonse de Lamartine, statesman, poet, and historian, who, in 1829, had declined the post of Foreign Secretary in the Polignac Ministry, and by his 'Harmonies Poetiques et Religieuses' achieved his unanimous election to the Academy; Lamercier, one of the three chief exponents of the Romantic school, with some of his detached pa.s.sages equal in beauty to anything in the language, and others so bizarre as to border on the ridiculous; Delavigne, representative of the golden mean of French literature, the half-cla.s.sic and half-romantic school; Beranger, the "Horace" of French poetry, whose outspoken ballads achieved such immense popularity, that in turn Louis XVIII. and Charles X. threw him into prison because of his freedom of ideas,--for probably no poet has ever exercised such a power over the destiny of a nation; Victor Hugo, engaged in bringing out 'Notre Dame de Paris,' 'Le Roi s'amuse,' 'Les Voix Interieures,' in which the poet's diction is held to have found its n.o.blest expression, 'Ruy Blas,' almost the most famous of his stage rhapsodies, and many another work of world-wide fame; Eugene Sue, whose first hit was made in 1842 with the too famous 'Mysteres de Paris,' followed three years later by 'Le Juif Errant'; the elder Dumas, who, during these years, published such works as 'Monte Cristo,' 'Les Trois Mousquetaires,' and 'Les Memoires d'un Medecin'; while in the year of the maestro's departure for London, Alexander Dumas the younger was bringing out his immortal 'La Dame aux Camelias.' Nor must one forget Paul de k.o.c.k, Henri Rochefort, who was then only sixteen years old, Zola half that age, and Francois Coppee a child of six.

When we turn to the painting world there is an equal _embarras de richesse_. What can one say to such a dazzling list of artists as Rosa Bonheur, Horace Vernet, Paul Delaroche, the founder of the modern "Eclectic School," Prud'hon, Gericault, Delacroix, Gros, Scheffer, Decamps, Corot, Rousseau, Troyon, Dupre, Diaz, Jean Francois Millet (who took his place with Garcia on the barricades during the Revolution of '48), nay, even Meissonier himself, whose first contribution to the Salon in 1834, a water-colour and an oil-picture, the centenarian remembered to have seen, followed two years later by the "Chess-Players," the precursor of that long series of elaborate genre-pictures, in which he depicted the civil and military life of the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries.

Truly, had Manuel Garcia pa.s.sed away in the year of the Revolution, in accordance with the modern cry of "too old at forty," his career and experiences would have still been of surpa.s.sing interest. But with this year we only see the scene of his triumphs shifted from France to England, and have yet to watch him not only carrying through a further forty-seven years of work as teacher, but appearing in the new _role_ of inventor, and then pa.s.sing on to that last period, ten years of wonderful old age.

THIRD PERIOD

LONDON

(1848-1895)

CHAPTER XIII.

ARRIVAL IN ENGLAND.

(1848-1854.)

At the close of June 1848 Manuel Garcia, at the age of forty-three, arrived in London, where he was to make a new home and spend the rest of his days.

What changes had taken place in the capital since he had last been there in the autumn of 1825! When he left George IV. was still king; when he returned William IV. had reigned and been succeeded by Queen Victoria, who had already been on the throne over ten years, while our present king, as Prince of Wales, was six years old.

Let us glance for a moment at the position of musical affairs in London, and at some of the artists who were in favour when Garcia arrived.

In the previous year (in which both Mendelssohn and Donizetti had died) an important event had taken place, for the Covent Garden Theatre was opened as an opera house, and a new period in its history begun.

The scheme had been originated by Signor Persiani, who took the lease of the place in partnership with Galletti; then, finding that they had embarked on an enterprise which was too much for them to carry through without a.s.sistance, they brought in Messrs Cramer, the music publishers, to help finance the undertaking.

As to the company which took part in the opening season, Signor Costa left Her Majesty's Theatre in order to fill the responsible post of conductor of an orchestra which had M. Prosper Sainton as princ.i.p.al violin; and of the artists themselves the stars were Grisi, Mario, Tamburini, and the Persianis, while Mdlle. Alboni made a triumphant _debut_, and proved herself another strong card to strengthen the hand of the new management.

With the launching of this enterprise a triangular duel was fought between Covent Garden, Drury Lane under Bunn, and Her Majesty's under Lumley, who, after the famous "Bunn Controversy," had been successful in securing a trump-card with Garcia's now world-famous pupil, Jenny Lind.

Next let us conjure up the artistic circles of London, among which Senor Garcia found himself in 1848. What names of the past we find when we glance in turn at science and literature, the stage and music. In one and all it was an age of giants.

The scientific world could boast such lights as Brewster, Darwin, Faraday, Sir John Herschel, Huxley, Miller, Owen, and Tyndall.

Literature poured forth a veritable Niagara of Prose writers: Charlotte Bronte, Carlyle, d.i.c.kens, Disraeli, Grote, G. P. R. James, Douglas Jerrold, Charles Kingsley, Charles Lever, Bulwer Lytton, Macaulay, Martineau, John Stuart Mill, Ruskin, and Thackeray; while Poetry was scarcely less prominent with Arnold, P. Bayley, the Brownings, Clough, Tom Hood, Horner, Alexander Smith, Sir H. Taylor, and Tennyson.

_En pa.s.sant_, we may note the following pieces of literary news, culled from newspapers published during the month in which Manuel Garcia landed in England.

The Nestor of literary France died in Paris on Tuesday last, Monsieur de Chateaubriand.

Ralph Waldo Emerson will deliver a lecture at Exeter Hall on "Domestic Life."

Review of the last new Transatlantic poem, "Evangeline," by Longfellow.

Macaulay's 'History of England.' Volumes one and two. Just published.

"NEW HISTORICAL ROMANCE," by the Author of 'Rienzi.'

Now ready at all libraries. In three volumes.

'HAROLD.'

_The Last of the Saxon Kings._

By Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton, Bart.

Of the Stage we get a strange glimpse from the advertis.e.m.e.nts in the papers of July 1848. Three things are specially noticeable in them.

Practically all the theatres boast "a regal air," a large proportion are managed by ladies, and the bill of fare laid before the voracious public is, to put it mildly, somewhat of an embarras de richesse.

Opera seasons are, of course, running at Her Majesty's Theatre and the Royal Italian Opera, Covent Garden. Leaving these and other musical matters of 1848 for the moment, let us reproduce some of the advertis.e.m.e.nts from the papers of that July, for we shall obtain in this way the best insight into the places of amus.e.m.e.nt of that time.

THEATRE ROYAL, DRURY LANE.

BENEFIT OF Mr MACREADy.

His last appearance previous to his departure for America.

THEATRE ROYAL, HAYMARKET.

Mr B. WEBSTER (_Sole Lessee_).