In the spring of 1781 the "elder" Garcia, being now six years old, became a chorister in the cathedral of his native town. Here he quickly began to display an extraordinary talent and precocity, his first musical training being received at the hands of Antonio Ripa, and continued under Juan Almarcha, who succeeded Ripa as Maestro di Cappella at the cathedral. These two men were considered the first teachers in Seville, and under their able tuition his powers developed so rapidly, that even in his early teens he was already acquiring a reputation in his town not only as singer, but as composer and _chef d'orchestre_.
During the years which Garcia was thus spending in patient study, the neighbouring kingdom of France was approaching nearer and nearer to that vast upheaval which was to bring such fatal consequences. The populace had long been smouldering with discontent against the hated aristocrats, and at last in 1789 the country flamed up in that terrible revolution which culminated in that wonderful episode, the storming of the Bastille on July 14.
When this historical event took place the elder Garcia was in his fifteenth year. Two years later he made his _début_ at the theatre of Cadiz in a "tonadilla" into which a number of his own compositions had been introduced. Not long after this he made his first appearance at Madrid in an oratorio, while his earliest opera was performed there under the title of "Il Preso." Such was his success in the Spanish capital that he was quickly recognised as one of the greatest tenors his country had ever produced.
The following year, 1792, found France overtaken by a succession of catastrophes: the invasion by Austria and Prussia, the storming of the Tuileries, the September massacre, and that tragic end of the French Monarchy, for the time being, with the execution of Louis XVI.
The last years of the eighteenth century were spent by the elder Garcia in building up an ever-increasing reputation throughout Spain; while during this period European history continued to raise fresh landmarks for future generations to bear in wondering memory, for when he was nineteen there came the execution of Robespierre, and the splendid victory of Lord Howe over the French fleet, followed in 1789 by another glorious naval achievement in the Battle of the Nile.