García, Manuel Patricio Rodríguez

Garcia, Manuel Patricio Rodriguez, distinguished Spanish vocal teacher, son of Manuel (del Popolo Vicente Rodriguez) Garcia; b. Madrid, March 17, 1805; d. London, July 1, 1906. He was intended to be a stage singer; in 1825 went to N.Y. with his father, but in 1829 adopted the vocation of a singing teacher (in Paris), with conspicuous success. An exponent of his father’s method, he carefully investigated the functions of the vocal organs; in 1855 he invented the laryngo-scope, for which the Univ. of Königsberg made him a Dr.Phil. In 1840 he sent to the Academy a Memoire sur la voix humaine, a statement of the conclusions arrived at by various investigators, with his own comments. He was appointed prof, at the Paris Cons, in 1847, but resigned in 1848 to accept a similar position at the London Royal Academy of Music, where he taught uninterruptedly until 1895. Among Garcia’s pupils were his first wife, Eugeníe García, Jenny Lind, Henriette Nissen, and Stockhausen. His Traite complet de I’art du chant was publ. in 1847 (Eng. ed., 1870; rev. ed. by Garcia’s grandson Albert Garcia as Garcia’’s Treatise on the Art of Singing, London, 1924). He also publ. (in Eng.) Hints on Singing (London, 1894).

Bibliography

M. Sterling Mackinlay, G.: The Centenarian, and His Time (Edinburgh, 1908); J. Levien, The G. Family (London, 1932);G. Malvern, The Great G.s (N.Y, 1958).

—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire