In the year 1714, he came to England, where his exquisite powers, as a solo performer, commanded universal admiration, and excited, among the nobility and gentry, a contention for the honor of patronising such rare abilities. The German Baron, Kilmansegge, was then chamberlain to George the First, as Elector of Hanover, and a great favorite of the King. To that nobleman Geminiani particularly attached himself, and, accordingly, dedicated to him his first work—a set of Twelve Sonatas, published in 1716. The style of these pieces was peculiarly elegant; but many of the passages were so florid, elaborate and difficult of execution, that few persons were adequate to their performance; yet all allowed their extraordinary merit, and many pronounced them superior to those of Corelli. They had, indeed, such an effect, that it became a point of eager debate, whether skill in execution, or taste in composition, constituted the predominant excellence of Geminiani; and so high was the esteem he enjoyed, among the lovers of instrumental music, that it is difficult to say, had he duly regarded his interest, to what extent he might not have availed himself of public and private favor. Kilmansegge, anxious to procure him a more effective patronage than his own, represented his merits to the notice of the King, who, looking over his works, became desirous to hear some of the pieces performed by their author; and soon after, accompanied, at his own earnest request, by Handel on the harpsichord, Geminiani so acquitted himself, as at once to delight his royal auditor, and to give new confirmation of the superiority of the violin over all other stringed instruments.
In 1726, he arranged Corelli’s first six Solos, as Concertos; and, soon after, the last six, but with a success by no means equal to that which attended the first. He also similarly treated six of the same composer’s Sonatas, and, in some additional parts, imitated their style with an exactitude that at once manifested his flexible ingenuity, and his judicious reverence for his originals. Encouraged, however, as he might be considered, by the success of this undertaking, to proceed in the exercise of his powers, six years elapsed before another work appeared—when he produced his own first set of Concertos; these were soon followed by a second set; and the merits of these two productions established his character as an eminent master in that species of composition. The opening Concerto in the first of these two sets is distinguished for the charming minuet with which it closes; and the last Concerto in the second set is esteemed one of the finest compositions known of its kind.
His second set of Solos (admired more than practised, and practised more than performed) was printed in 1739: and his third set of Concertos (laboured, difficult and fantastic), in the year 1741. Soon after this, he published his long-promised, and once impatiently-expected work, entitled “Lo Dizionario Armonico.” In this work, after giving due commendation to Lully, Corelli and Bononcini, as having been the first improvers of instrumental music, he endeavours to refute the idea, that the vast foundations of universal harmony can be established upon the narrow and confined modulation of these authors; and makes many remarks on the uniformity of modulation apparent in the compositions that had appeared in different parts of Europe for several years previously.
This didactic production possessed many recommendatory qualities; many combinations, modulations and cadences, calculated to create, and to advance the science and taste of a tyro; but it appeared too late. Indolence had suffered the influence of his name to diminish, and his style and ideas (new as, in some respects, they were) to be superseded by the more fashionable manner, and more novel conceptions, of fresh candidates for favour and fame.
This work was succeeded by his “Treatise on Good Taste,” and his “Rules for playing in Good Taste;” and, in 1748, he brought forward his “Art of Playing on the Violin;” at that time a highly useful work, and superior to any similar publication extant. It contained the most minute directions for holding the instrument, and for the use of the bow; as well as the graces, the various shifts of the hand, and a great number of applicable examples.
About 1756, Geminiani was struck with a most curious and fantastic idea; that of a piece, the performance of which should represent to the imagination all the events in the episode of the thirteenth book of Tasso’s Jerusalem. It is needless to say, that the chimera was too extravagant, of attempting to narrate and instruct, describe and inform, by the vague medium of instrumental sounds. Musical sounds may possibly, according to a conjecture sometimes entertained, constitute the language of heaven; but as we, on earth, are possessed of no key to their meaning in that capacity, we must be content to employ, for our purposes of intercommunion, the articulate, which alone is, to us, the definite.
In 1750, Geminiani went to Paris, where he continued about five years; after which, he returned to England, and published a new edition of his first two sets of Concertos. In 1761, he visited Ireland, in order to spend some time with his favourite and much-attached scholar, Dubourg, master of the King’s band in Dublin. Geminiani had spent many years in compiling an elaborate Treatise on Music, which he designed for publication; but, soon after his arrival in Dublin, by the treachery of a female servant (who, it has been said, was recommended to him for no other purpose than that she might steal it), the manuscript was purloined out of his chamber, and could never afterwards be recovered. The magnitude of this loss, and his inability to repair it, made a deep impression on his mind, and seemed to hasten fast his dissolution. He died at Dublin on the 17th of September, 1762, in the eighty-third year of his age.[22]
Endowed with feeling, a respectable master of the laws of harmony, and acquainted with some of the secrets of fine composition, Geminiani can hardly be said to have been unqualified either to move the soul, or to gratify the sense: yet truth, after being just to his real deserts, will affirm that his bass is not uniformly the most select; that his melody is frequently irregular in its phrase and measure; and that, on the whole, he is decidedly inferior to Corelli, with whom, by his admirers, he has been too frequently and too fondly compared.
For what was deficient in his compositions, as well as for what was unfavourable in his fortune, the unsettled habits of his life, and his inherent inclination for rambling, may perhaps partly account. His fondness for pictures (a taste very strongly developed in him) was less discreetly exercised than it had been by his prototype, Corelli. On the contrary, to gratify this propensity, he not only suspended his studies, and neglected his profession, but oftentimes involved himself in pecuniary embarrassments, which a little prudence and foresight would have enabled him to avoid. To gratify his taste, he bought pictures; and, to supply his wants, he sold them. The consequence of this kind of traffic was loss, and its concomitant, necessity. Under such circumstances, the concentration of thought, requisite for giving to his productions the utmost value derivable from the natural powers of his mind, was almost impossible.
A trait creditable to his character, on a graver score, presents itself in the following transaction. The place of Master and Composer of the state-music in Ireland became vacant in the year 1727, and the Earl of Essex obtained from Sir Robert Walpole, the minister, a promise of it. He then told Geminiani that his difficulties were at an end, as he had provided for him a place suited to his profession, which would afford him an ample provision for life. On enquiry into the conditions of the office, Geminiani found that it was not tenable by a member of the Romish communion. He therefore declined accepting, assigning this as a reason, and at the same time observing that, although he had never made any great pretensions to religion, yet to renounce that faith in which he had been first baptized, for the sake of temporal advantages, was what he could in no way answer for to his conscience. The post was given to Matthew Dubourg, who had formerly been the pupil of Geminiani, and whose merits were not excluded by similar grounds for rejection.