Garcia the Centenarian and His Times: Being a Memoir of Manuel Garcia's Life and Labours for the Advancement of Music and ScienceMackinlay, M. (Malcolm) Sterling
History
Garcia the Centenarian and His Times: Being a Memoir of Manuel Garcia's Life and Labours for the Advancement of Music and Science
Mdlle. Lind's course of study under Garcia lasted in all ten months, by
which time she had learned all that it was possible for any master to
teach her. After this period she had improved so wonderfully under his
magical tuition that, as he himself picturesquely expressed it, she was
able to look down on her former efforts as from a mountain to a plain.
The result for which she had so ardently longed, so patiently waited, so
perseveringly laboured, was attained at last. Her voice, no longer
suffering from the effects of the cruel fatigue and the inordinate
amount of over-exertion which had so lately endangered, not merely its
wellbeing, but its very existence, had now far more than recovered its
pristine vigour,--it had acquired a rich depth of tone, a sympathetic
sweetness, a bird-like charm in the silvery clearness of its upper
register, which at once impressed the listener with the feeling that he
had never before heard anything in the least degree resembling it.
Few human organs are perfect. It is quite possible that other voices
may have possessed qualities which this did not--for voices of
exceptional beauty are nearly always characterised by an individuality
of expression which forms by no means the least potent of their
attractions. But the listener never stopped to analyse the qualities of
Mdlle. Lind's voice, the marked individuality of which set analysis at
defiance. By turns full, sympathetic, tender, sad or brilliant, it
adapted itself so perfectly to the artistic conception of the song it
was interpreting, that singer, voice, and song were one.
"With such rare power at command, she was able, without effort, to give
expression to every phase of the conception which she had originally
formed by the exercise of innate genius alone. Her acting had grown up
with her from infancy, and formed part of her inmost being. She had
found no one in Paris capable of teaching her anything that could
improve that, though she thought it necessary to take lessons in
deportment. The rest she had studied for herself, though she had
naturally gained experience by observation of others.
"She had acted to herself the part of Norma, which had been the last
_rôle_ she had undertaken in Stockholm before setting out for Paris, and
calmly passed judgment upon her own performance. That she was satisfied
with it one cannot doubt, for she had studied the difficult character of
her heroine to such good purpose that she had reconciled all its
apparent incongruities, and elevated it into a consistent whole,
dramatic and musical, breathing poetry and romance from beginning to
end, yet as true to nature as she was herself, and no longer fettered by
the fatal technical weakness which had so long stood between her ideal
and its perfect realisation. There was no weakness now. The artist was
complete."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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