"One of his most intimate friends at that period was Joseph Joachim, for whom, alike as a man and a musician, he cherished the warmest admiration and regard. When the great violinist received the honorary degree of Mus. Doc. in 1877, Señor Garcia paid him the highest compliment in his power, by making the journey to Cambridge especially, in order to be present at the ceremony and to attend the concert given by the University Musical Society. I had the privilege of accompanying him on that occasion, and sat beside him both at the rehearsal and the concert, Mr (now Sir) Villiers Stanford being the conductor. How he revelled in Joachim's performance of the Beethoven concerto! Every note of that masterpiece, as it issued from the fingers of its noblest interpreter, seemed to afford him most exquisite delight. He was also impressed by the first symphony of Brahms (given as the 'exercise' for his doctor's degree, conferred in absentiâ), and considered it not only a fine work, but a remarkable example of reticence in a composer whose powers had attained maturity long before. We returned to town after the concert, but in spite of the fatigue involved by this lengthy 'outing,' the maestro was at his labours at the usual hour next morning, and feeling, as he expressed it, 'Frais comme un jeune lion.'
"At Bentinck Street Señor Garcia taught several budding Jewish vocalists, entrusted to his care by members of the Rothschild family, who showed their love of music by defraying the cost of teaching (and sometimes of maintaining) the youthful singers. One of these pupils, who subsequently became a prominent member of an English Opera Company, was an especial protégée of Baroness Lionel de Rothschild; and one day the kind lady, accompanied by her daughter (afterwards the Countess of Rosebery), called to inquire how the girl was progressing. The maestro's reply was characteristic. 'Madame la Baronne, she has all the musical talent of her race, but little of its industriousness or perseverance. Still, as in spite of that she accomplishes in a week what takes most other girls a month, I hope sometime to make a singer of her.'"
Here I will abandon Mr Klein's narrative, to resume it later in describing the preparation of Garcia's last text-book, 'Hints on Singing.'
During the next few years a number of pupils passed through his hands at the Royal Academy of Music, who were afterwards to take an important place in their profession.
In 1875 Miss Orridge came to place herself under the maestro. The years which she spent at the Academy brought victory after victory. She gained in turn the Llewellyn Davies Bronze and Gold Medals for declamatory singing, the Parepa-Rosa Medal, and the Christine Nillson's Second Prize. While still a student at the Royal Academy of Music, Miss Orridge made her début at the St James's Hall Ballad Concerts, and also went on a successful tour with Sims Reeves. From that time she continued to make rapid strides in her professional status, and gave promise of being one of the best contralto concert singers of her time, when her career was brought to a sudden close by an untimely death, when she had been before the public scarcely six years.
At the commencement of 1876 Garcia received the letter from Wagner to which attention has been already called, embodying the offer for him to train the singers for the first Bayreuth Festival. This, however, he was obliged to refuse, owing to his large clientèle in London.
On July 14, 1877, the inventor of the Laryngoscope received his second recognition for the services which he had rendered to the medical profession, fifteen years having elapsed since the degree of Mus. Doc. had been conferred on him, honoris causa, by the University of Königsberg.
An influential meeting assembled to give their support at the ceremony of presenting him with a service of plate.
Professor Huxley presided, and in his speech bore strong testimony to the great services that Manuel Garcia had rendered alike to science and humanity by his important discovery. It was unnecessary, Huxley said, to do more than remind the physician that in the laryngoscope he had gained a new ally against disease, and a remarkable and most valuable addition to that series of instruments, all of which, from the stethoscope onwards, had come into use within the memory of living men, and had effected a revolution in the practice of medicine. They owed this instrument to Signor Garcia.
The following year brought fresh honours at the Royal Academy of Music. As previously the maestro had been elected a member of the Committee of Management after twenty years' connection with the institution, so now, after thirty years, he received a further mark of distinction by being made one of the Directors of the Academy.