The Legacy of Garcia

ANYONE WHO HAS LIVED IN A HOUSE BUILT OVER one hundred years go knows about the constant maintenance. One pays for the atmosphere in replacement parts and authentic materials, and, in my case, someone to install them. This is where Markus Pipyne enters the story. Almost as soon as my family moved into to our old house, he began repairing it. He is a strong man with a friendly smile that never once intimated that I was an idiot for not being able to do this work myself. Markus and I became friends, and then our families got to know each other, so that every once in a long while, we all had dinner together. At one of these dinner parties, I revealed to Susan, Markus's wife, that I taught voice in the Fine Arts Building on Michigan Avenue, Chicago, every Friday. The Fine Arts Building is an early Chicago landmark, designed by Louis Sullivan, and still is occupied by fine artists, musicians, and book and music stores. Susan excused herself from the dinner table, and a few minutes later returned with a typewritten manuscript, which she laid near my place at the table. To my great surprise, she explained that her grandfather, Lewis B. Canterbury, had had a voice studio in the Fine Arts Building during the 1940s and 50s, and he had written the manuscript now at my side. Lewis Bodman Canterbury (1875-1957) was born in East Weymouth, Massachusetts, son of a wealthy shoe manufacturer, Susan explained. His early life of privilege included education at Amherst and Harvard. During this period, he was one of the lead researchers of a biography about Daniel Webster. How the family lost the bulk of its fortune is unknown, but one might assume the stock market crash of 1929 played a role. Details of Mr. Canterbury's training are also unknown, but he was a baritone, and after he gave up traveling the country giving recitals and a sort of drama show he performed with his wife, Luella, he began teaching in the Fine Arts Building. He shared the studio with his wife, who practiced psychotherapy. There was a joke at the dinner table, perhaps a little mean-spirited, speculating about sharing clients. Susan further recalled an aged aunt who had told her about traveling with her father and sleeping beneath the stage after his performances because, with a wife and four children in tow, Lewis was too poor to afford a hotel. The photograph that came with the manuscript showed a man with a pleasant but rather serious demeanor, and Susan recalled that he was tall and slender, sharp-witted and creative, always with a cigarette in one hand, talking away for hours at the dinner table. He came to Susan's family's house at least once a week for corned beef hash and eggs, and later, he would watch The Three Stooges with Susan and laugh riotously. Treatises like this one are real treasures. Not only is this one written with clarity, it is written in a style and with a command of language rarely found today. I am grateful to Editor in Chief Richard Sjoerdsma and Journal of Singing for printing it. [Editor's Note: In reproducing the pamphlet, I corrected obvious misspellings and typographic errors, and all words rendered in capital letters to indicate stress were changed to italics. The author's enchantment with semicolons and dashes was retained.] The Singing Method of Manuel Garcia (A Plea for the Larynx in Singing) Lewis B. Canterbury Foreword This little brochure on the theory and practice of singing as taught by Manuel Garcia is the result of thirty years of professional singing and teaching. A biographical account of Garcia-admittedly the greatest singing teacher of the 19th century in Europe-will be found in Section 2 of the accompanying booklet. Mr. Canterbury will be pleased to meet you at any convenient time at his studio at the above address at which time he will further explain and exemplify with his own singing, at the present age of seventy years, the practical application and value of the principles enunciated in this booklet. …