ORR232_ Book.qxd

Réunie, à jamais. Forever united!
Pauline Viardot
Poem by Sully-Prudhomme
‘Ici-bas tous les lilas meurent’ (Down here all lilacs die) [CD 2 Track 19]
(pub. 1884)
ANNA CATERINA ANTONACCI
PAULINE AND Louis Viardot’s only son, Paul (1857-1941), became a
distinguished virtuoso violinist – Fauré’s first Violin Sonata, Op. 13, is
dedicated to him. Like his mother, he enjoyed some celebrity in St Petersburg,
where he performed Tchaikovsky’s Serenade, and met the composer. Paul
Viardot studied with Hubert Léonard; later in his life he was also a conductor,
composer, and author of several books, including Histoire de la musique, which
had an introduction by Saint-Saëns, and Mémoires d’un artiste (Paris, 1910).
This setting of a verse by Sully-Prudhomme (1839-1907) is one of Six
Mélodies that Paul Viardot published in 1884, the year in which both Louis
Viardot and Ivan Turgenev had died. The same poem was also set by Fauré
and Cui.
Ici-bas tous les lilas meurent, Down here all the lilacs die,
Tous les chants des oiseaux all the birds’ songs are
sont courts. short.
Je rêve aux étés qui demeurent I dream of summers that last
toujours. forever.
Ici-bas les lèvres effleurent Down here lips brush past,
–100–