Unhappily Miss Crichton's career, so brightly begun, was brought to a sudden close by her catching a malignant fever at Milan, resulting in the loss of her vocal powers. Had it not been for this, there is no doubt that she, too, would have been among that wonderful band of pupils who won fame in the operatic world for their maestro and themselves.
Miss Crichton, however, during her years of study seems to have caught the bacillus of old age from her master, for, upon ultimately regaining the beauty of her voice after many years of retirement, she continued to sing to her friends until within a few months of her death in her eightieth year. Among other eminent pupils who acquired from Garcia the bad habit of longevity, one may recall Stockhausen, who lived to pass his eightieth birthday; Charles Santley and Bessie Palmer, who are well on in the seventies; and Pauline Viardot, who is not so very far off her ninetieth year. Who will assert that old age is not catching?
1850 was a year interesting to musicians from the fact that Frederick Gye, the new manager of Covent Garden, produced Halévy's opera, "La Juive," while the great German basso, Herr Formes, made his English début; but the year was memorable for England at large, from the fact that it saw the death of two of her best-known men—Robert Peel and Wordsworth.
With the following year—in which Turner passed away—the subject of this memoir was included for the first time in the census of the United Kingdom. It affords a curious comparison with the numbers of the present day, when we note that the Return, taken a month before the opening of the Great Exhibition, gave the population as 27,637,761, the last figure of which shows the advent of the maestro with unmistakable clearness.
1852 again brought Garcia's name before the English public as it had in 1848. Just as in that year three rival opera companies in London had fought for the possession of his pupil Jenny Lind, so now the two managers—Gye and Lumley—strove for the possession of another of his pupils, Johanna Wagner, whose name was the only one rivalling that of the Swedish Nightingale in its magnetic hold upon the musical world.
The January of the following year, 1853, brought another pupil, Bessie Palmer, the contralto. She tells the story of her difficulties in becoming his pupil in her book of 'Musical Recollections':—
"By the advice of C. L. Gruneisen, the critic of 'The Morning Post,' I entered the Royal Academy of Music as a student. When I commenced studying in September 1851, Manuel Garcia's class, which I had chosen to enter, was full, so I was placed in Mr Frank Cox's class for six months. Then Signor Crivelli heard me at one of the Academy weekly concerts, and suggested that I should become his pupil next term. Imagine my surprise when the old man positively asserted that my voice was soprano, and made me learn many of Grisi's songs.
"After some months I found my voice becoming thin and scratchy and my throat in a constant state of irritation. At last, in January of 1853, I wrote to M. Cazalet, the superintendent, requesting that I should be placed in Signor Garcia's class, as Signor Crivelli had quite altered the tone and quality of my voice, and had made a mistake. M. Cazalet answered that the committee refused to permit me to go into Signor Garcia's class, and unless Signor Crivelli would kindly take me back as his pupil I could not return to the Academy. Of course I wrote at once and said I would not rejoin Crivelli's class, and certainly would not return at all.
"On leaving the Academy I went to Garcia's house and explained to him how my voice had been changed. He made me sing a few bars, and then told me I must rest entirely for some considerable time, not singing at all, and not talking too much, so as to give the throat, which was out of order, complete rest. After six months of quiet I went again to him, when he tried my voice and said I could now begin to practise. I therefore commenced lessons at once, and soon found it improving, thanks to the careful way in which he made me practise, bringing the voice back to its proper register, and giving me Italian contralto songs after many lessons."
With this episode we are brought to the year which medical men will consider the most important one in Manuel Garcia's life, as it was in 1854 that he perfected his great discovery.