The genius of the Garcia family flowered not less in Mme. Malibran's
younger sister than in her own brilliant and admired self. Pauline, the
second daughter of Manuel Garcia, was thirteen years the junior of her
sister, and born at Paris, July 18, 1821. The child had for sponsors at
baptism the celebrated Ferdinand Paer, the composer, and the Princess
Pauline Prascovie Galitzin, a distinguished Russian lady, noted for her
musical amateurship, and the full name given was Michelle Ferdinandie
Pauline. The little girl was only three years old when her sister Maria
made her _début_ in London, and even then she lisped the airs she
heard sung by her sister and her father with something like musical
intelligence, and showed that the hereditary gift was deeply rooted in
her own organization.
Manuel Garcia's project for establishing Italian opera in America and
the disastrous crash in which it ended have already been described in
an earlier chapter. Maria, who had become Mme. Malibran, was left in New
York, while the rest of the Garcia family sailed for Mexico, to give
a series of operatic performances in that ancient city. The precocious
genius of Pauline developed rapidly. She learned in Mexico to play on
the organ and piano as if by instinct, with so much ease did she master
the difficulties of these instruments, and it was her father's
proud boast that never, except in the cases of a few of the greatest
composers, had aptitude for the musical art been so convincingly
displayed at her early years. At the age of six Pauline Garcia could
speak four languages, French, Spanish, Italian, and English, with
facility, and to these she afterward added German. Her passion for
acquirement was ardent and never lost its force, for she was not only
an indefatigable student in music, but extended her researches and
attainments in directions alien to the ordinary tastes of even
brilliant women. It is said that before she had reached the age of
eight-and-twenty, she had learned to read Latin and Greek with facility,
and made herself more than passably acquainted with various arts and
sciences. To the indomitable will and perseverance of her sister Maria,
she added a docility and gentleness to which the elder daughter of
Garcia had been a stranger. Pauline was a favorite of her father, who
had used pitiless severity in training the brilliant and willful Maria.
"Pauline can be guided by a thread of silk," he would say, "but Maria
needs a hand of iron."
Garcia's operatic performances in Mexico were very successful up to the
breaking out of the civil war consequent on revolt from Spain. Society
was so utterly disturbed by this catastrophe that residence in Mexico
became alike unsafe and profitless, and the Spanish musician resolved
to return to Europe. He turned his money into ingots of gold and silver,
and started, with his little family, across the mountains interposing
between the capital and the seaport of Vera Cruz, a region at that
period terribly infested with brigands. Garcia was not lucky enough
to escape these outlaws. They pounced on the little cavalcade, and the
hard-earned wealth of the singer, amounting to nearly a hundred thousand
dollars, passed out of his possession in a twinkling. The cruel humor
of the chief of the banditti bound Garcia to a tree, after he had
been stripped naked, and as it was known that he was a singer he was
commanded to display his art for the pleasure of these strange auditors.
For a while the despoiled man sternly refused, though threatened with
immediate death. At last he began an aria, but his voice was so choked
by his rage and agitation that he broke down, at which the robber
connoisseurs hissed. This stung Garcia's pride, and he began again with
a haughty gesture, breaking forth into a magnificent flight of song,
which delighted his hearers, and they shouted "_Bravissimo!_" with all
the _abandon_ of an enthusiastic Italian audience. A flash of chivalry
animated the rude hearts of the brigands, for they restored to Garcia
all his personal effects, and a liberal share of the wealth which they
had confiscated, and gave him an escort to the coast as a protection
against other knights of the road. The reader will hardly fail to recall
a similar adventure which befell Salvator Rosa, the great painter, who
not only earned immunity, but gained the enthusiastic admiration of a
band of brigands, by whom he had been captured, through a display of his
art.
The talent of Pauline Garcia for the piano was so remarkable that it was
for some time the purpose of her father to devote her to this musical
specialty. She was barely more than seven on the return of the Garcias
to Europe, and she was placed, without delay, under the care of a
celebrated teacher, Meysenberg of Paris. Three years later she was
transferred to the instruction of Franz Liszt, of whom she became one of
the most distinguished pupils. Liszt believed that his young scholar had
the ability to become one of the greatest pianists of the age, and was
urgent that she should devote herself to this branch of the musical
art. Her health, however, was not equal to the unremitting sedentary
confinement of piano practice, though she attained a degree of skill
which enabled her to play with much success as a solo performer at the
concerts of her sister Maria. Her voice had also developed remarkable
quality during the time when she was devoting her energies in another
direction, and her proud father was wont to say, whenever a buzz of
ecstatic pleasure over the singing of Mme. Malibran met his ear, "There
is a younger sister who is a greater genius than she." It is more than
probable that Pauline Garcia, as a singer, owed an inestimable debt
to Pauline Garcia as a player, and that her accuracy and brilliancy of
musical method were, in large measure, the outcome of her training under
the king of modern pianists.
Manuel Garcia died when Pauline was but eleven years old, and the
question of her daughter's further musical education was left to Mme.
Garcia. The celebrated tenor singer, Adolphe Nourrit, one of the famous
lights of the French stage, who had been a favorite pupil of Garcia,
showed great kindness to the widow and her daughter. Anxious to promote
the interests of the young girl, he proposed that she should take
lessons from Eossini, and that great _maestro_ consented. Nourrit's
delight at this piece of good luck, however, was quickly checked. Mme.
Garcia firmly declined, and said that if her son Manuel could not
come to her from Rome for the purpose of training Pauline's voice,
she herself was equal to the task, knowing the principles on which
the Garcia school of the voice was founded. The systems of Rossini and
Garcia were radically different, the one stopping at florid grace of
vocalization, while the other aimed at a radical and profound culture of
all the resources of the voice.
It may be said, however, that Pauline Garcia was self-educated as a
vocalist. Her mother's removal to Brussels, her brother's absence in
Italy, and the wandering life of Mme. Malibran practically threw her on
her own resources. She was admirably fitted for self-culture. Ardent,
resolute, industrious, thoroughly grounded in the soundest of art
methods, and marvelously gifted in musical intelligence, she applied
herself to her vocal studies with abounding enthusiasm, without
instruction other than the judicious counsels of her mother. She had her
eyes fixed on a great goal, and this she pursued without rest or turning
from her path. She exhausted the _solfeggi_ which her father had written
out for her sister Maria, and when this laborious discipline was done
she determined to compose others for herself. She had already learned
harmony and counterpoint from Reicha at the Paris Conservatoire, and
these she now found occasion to put in practice. She copied all the
melodies of Schubert, of whom she was a passionate admirer, and thought
no toil too great which promoted her musical growth. Her labor was a
labor of love, and all the ardor of her nature was poured into it. Music
was not the sole accomplishment in which she became skilled. Unassisted
by teaching, she, like Malibran, learned to sketch and paint in oil and
water-colors, and found many spare moments in the midst of an incessant
art-training, which looked to the lyric stage, to devote to literature.
All this denotes a remarkable nature, fit to overcome every difficulty
and rise to the topmost shining peaks of artistic greatness. What she
did our sketch will further relate.