In Madeira, after work in the vineyards is done for the day, the country people return playing the Machête, perhaps twenty together, with occasionally a larger five stringed one accompanying.
There is an English Guitar Tutor by Mme. Sidney Pratten (Boosey, London), but those who wish to know more about the instrument technically are referred to 'Learning the Guitar simplified,' by the same authoress. The price of a good guitar of French make, the best for playing, is from £5 to £10.
[ A. J. H. ]
GUNG'L, Joseph, popular composer of dance music, born at Zsàmbèk in Hungary Dec. 1, 1810; son of a stocking-weaver; began life as schoolmaster. He received his first instruction n music from Semann in Buda, and having nelisted in the Austrian army, was first oboist and then bandmaster to the 4th regiment of artillery. His Hungarian March, op. 1, was the first of a long series of marches and dance music. Up to 1843 Gung'l made concert-tours with his regimental band to Munich, Augsburg, Nuremerg, Würzburg, and Frankfurt, performing chiefly his own pieces, but in that year he established a band of his own at Berlin, and his publishers, Bute and Bock, are said to have made large sums by his music. On his return from America in 1849, he was appointed musikdirector to the King of Prussia; and in 1858 Capellmeister to the Emperor of Austria. In he meantime he and his band had visited nearly every capital on the continent. Gung'l has been stationary at Munich since 1864. His works are very numerous. It is stated that down to the end of 1873 he had composed 300 dances and marches, for the most part distinuished by charming melody and marked rhythm. [App. p.819 "date of death, Jan. 31, 1889."]
His daughter Virginia, an opera-singer of merit, made her first appearance at Munich in 1871, and is now engaged at Schwerin.
His nephew Johann, also well known as a composer of dance music, was born, like his uncle, at Zsàmbèk in 1819 [App. p.661 "March 5"], and, like him, made professional tours to every capital in Europe. He retired in 1862, and lives at Fünfkirchen in Hungary.
[ F. G. ]
GUNN, Barnabas, noted for his extempore laying, was organist of St. Philip's, Birmingham, which he quitted in 1730 to succeed Hine as oranist of Gloucester Cathedral. A Te Deum and Jubilate in D of his composition are extant in MS. He published 'Sonatas for the Harpsichord,' and in 1736, at Gloucester, a thin 4to. volume containing 'Two Cantatas and Six Songs,' the music printed on one side of the leaf only, and prefaced by a poetical address 'To all Lovers of Musick,' and a remarkable list of 464 subscribers (including Handel and most of the principal musicians of the day), subscribing for 617 copies. He died in 1743.
Barnaby Gunn, probably a relation of the above, was organist of Chelsea Hospital from April 16, 1730, until early in 1753.
[ W. H. H. ]
GUNN, John, born in Edinburgh about 1765, in 1790 established himself in London as professor of the violoncello and flute, and whilst there published 'Forty Scotch Airs arranged as trios for flute, violin, and violoncello'; 'The theory and practice of fingering the Violoncello,' 1793, with a dissertation on stringed instruments; and 'The Art of playing the German Flute on new principles.' In 1795 he returned to Edinburgh. In 1801 he published an 'Essay theoretical and practical, on the application of Harmony, Thorough-bass, and Modulation to the Violoncello.' In 1807 he brought out his most important work, viz. 'An Historical Inquiry respecting the performance on the Harp in the Highlands of Scotland from the earliest times until it was discontinued about the year 1734,' written at the request of the National Society of Scotland. His wife, Anne, before her marriage Anne Young, was an eminent pianist. She was the authoress of a work entitled 'An Introduction to Music … illustrated by musical games and apparatus and fully and familiarly explained' (Edinburgh about 1815). The games and apparatus were of her invention. A second edition appeared in 1820, and a third (posthumous) in 1827.
[ W. H. H. ]
GUSIKOW, Michael Joseph, an artist of rare musical faculty—'a true genius' says Mendelssohn—born of poor Jewish parents and of a family which had produced musicians for more than a century, at Sklow in Poland, Sept. 3, 1806. He first played the flute and tympanon, a kind of dulcimer. At the age of 17 he married, and a few years after discovered that weakness of the chest would not allow him to continue playing the flute. He thereupon took up the Strohfiedel, an instrument of the dulcimer kind, composed of strips of fir on a framework of straws, which he improved and increased in compass. Upon this he attained extraordinary facility and power. In 1832 he and four of his relatives began a long tour, through Odessa—where he was heard by Lamartine; Kiew—where he was much encouraged by Lipinski; Moscow, and thence to south and north Germany, Paris, and Brussels. He travelled in the dress and guise of a Polish Jew—long beard, thin, pale, sad, expressive features—and excited the greatest applause by his astonishing execution and the expression which he threw into his unlikely instrument. Mendelssohn heard him at Leipzig, and called him 'a real phenomenon, a killing fellow (Mordkerl); who is inferior to no player on earth in style and execution, and delights me more on his odd instrument than many do on their pianos, just because it is so thankless …… I have not enjoyed a concert so much for a long time' (and see the rest—Letter Feb. 18, 1836). But it wore him out; he was laid up at Brussels for long, and died at Aix la Chapelle, Oct. 21, 1837, adding another to the list of geniuses who have died shortly after thirty. (See Fétis, who saw much of him.)
[ G. ]
GUSTAVE III, ou le Bal masqué, opera in 5 acts; words by Scribe, music by Auber. Produced at the Académie Feb. 27, 1833; in London, as Gustavus the Third, at Covent Garden, NOT. 13, 33; in French (as above) at Her Majesty's, March 29, 1851.
[ G. ]
