Page:A Dictionary of Music and Musicians vol 4.djvu/663

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GERSTER.
GIOVANNINI.
647

and dramatic genius. The exquisite beauty of her singing has never been shown to greater advantage, and her acting at every moment reveals true art and feeling. Among fine touches in Mme. Gerster's dramatic performance, we may specially note her wrapping her head in a cloak before she rushes in at the fatal door in the last scene, that she may at least not see the descending knife.'

In the autumn of 1878 she went to America, and obtained her usual success both in opera and concerts. Returning to England she sang with success at the Birmingham Festival of 1879. She went back to America in the following year, singing there frequently until 1883. A concert tour in the States was begun in Nov. 1887.

[ A. C. ]

GIBBONS, Christopher. Page 595a, for l. 11 from bottom read In 1638 he succeeded Thomas Holmes as. Line 5 from bottom, after Abbey, add He resigned his Winchester appointment June 23, 1661, and was succeeded by John Silver. After him came Randal Jewett, who held the post from 1667 to 1675.

GIBBONS, ORLANDO. Vol. i. p. 594b, l. 6 from bottom, for smallpox read apoplexy. A post-mortem was held on him, the report of which is preserved in the Record Office, and was printed in the 'Athenæum,' Nov. 14, 1885. He was buried on June 6. Mr. Cummings ('Musical Society,' April, 1886) says he took the Mus.B. Degree at Cambridge in 1606. P. 595a, 1. 24, add that the portrait referred to is a copy from a lost original once in the possession of a Mrs. Fussell.

GIGELIRA. See Strohfiedel.

GILMORE, Patrick Sarsfield, a popular bandmaster in the United States, was born Dec. 25, 1829, near Dublin. While a young man he went to Canada with an English band of which he was a member, and soon after went across into the United States and settled at Salem, Massachusetts, where he was appointed leader of a military band. In 1859 Gilmore went to Boston and organized a band, named after himself, which became distinguished for its fine playing, the result of his training. During the Civil War Gilmore was a bandmaster in the Federal Army stationed at New Orleans, where, in 1864, he gave a festival with a monster orchestra made up from the army bands, and startled the audience with some novelties, one of which was the firing of guns by electricity, making the report come on the first beat of the bar, as though they were great drums. This effect was reserved for the performances of patriotic music. Gilmore's widest reputation, not confined to the United States, was earned by his success in organizing the two immense music festivals in Boston—one in 1869, known as the National Peace Jubilee, with an orchestra of 1000 and a chorus of 10,000; the other in 1872, called the World's Peace Jubilee, with 2000 players in the band and 20,000 choristers. On each occasion a powerful organ, chimes of bells, anvils and artillery were added to the orchestral resources, and an immense shed was built for the concert-room. Shortly after the second jubilee Gilmore went to New York and took charge of a large military band, with which he has travelled over the United States and even about Europe (1878) on concert tours. He has also had charge of large bands at concert gardens in New York and at summer resorts on the neighbouring coast. His compositions of military and dance music, as well as his arrangement of works of different kinds for open air performance, have enjoyed a wide popularity.

GIORDANI. Line 5 of article, for 1762 read 1753; they came to London with the singer Lini. Line 16, for Baccio read Bacio. Line 31, for Tomasso read Tommaso. Line 35, for Leoni read Lini.

GIOVANNINI, a name interesting in musical history solely on account of the part it plays in the discussion concerning the song 'Willst du dein Herz mir schenken,' which for many years was attributed to Sebastian Bach. The song appears in the larger of the two music books of Anna Magdalena Bach, written on two leaves now loose, but evidently once belonging to the volume, in which they occur after p. 111. The outer page of the first leaf bears the title 'Aria di Govannini' (sic) the song itself appearing on the two interior pages. As a copy of the song 'Schlummert ein, ihr matten Augen' is written on the outer page of the second leaf, it has been considered that the contents of these pages were contemporary with the rest of the book, and Zelter, into whose hands the volume came from C. P. E. Bach, hazarded the conjecture that the song was by Bach himself, that the Italian name was the equivalent of the composer's first name, and that the copy was made partly by Anna Magdalena herself. Zelter's theory became fixed in the public mind as a certainty, since a play by Ernst Leistner and a novel by A. E. Brachvogel made the composition of the song an incident in the love-story of Bach; and even at the present day the question can hardly be taken as settled. Forkel refused from the first to believe in its authenticity, judging it from internal evidence, but Dr. W. Rust has adopted Zelter's theory, and has even gone so far as to assert that some of the bass notes are in the composer's autograph. (Bach-Gesellschaft, vol. xx. 1. p. 15.) More recently, however, strong evidence has been brought which may be taken as proving the song to be the composition of an actual Giovannini, whose name appears in Gerber's Lexicon as that of an Italian violinist and composer who lived chiefly in Berlin from 1740 until his death in 1782. In the same writer's 'Neues Lexicon' (1812–1814) the additional information is given that about 1745 he went to London, and produced, under the pseudonym of the Count of St. Germaine, a pasticcio entitled 'L'Incostanza delusa' in which the airs were much admired. He also published some violin solos under the same name. Dr. Spitta, in his