ORR232_ Book.qxd

It has taken nearly a century since Pauline Viardot’s death for performers
and listeners to take an interest in her music. From her adolescence she had
composed songs and piano pieces. Some of these were published long after
they were composed, and there is speculation about the dates of many of them.
Although Viardot did not consider herself to be a composer, or so it is said, she
achieved more than most women of her time working in this pre-eminently
male sphere. She grew up in Paris when the vogue for romances and
chansonnettes dominated the vocal-music publishing business. Through her
acquaintance with Schumann, and later Gounod, Berlioz, Tchaikovsky and
Fauré, she saw the whole notion of song transformed into a separate art. Her
choice of poets reflects the trajectory of her life, including Mörike, Lermontov
and Turgenev. As a child she had met Lorenzo Da Ponte, Mozart’s librettist;
she lived long enough to know the music of Debussy and Richard Strauss.
Pauline Viardot’s life in many ways sums up the whole history of music in the
19th century.
–19–
© Patrick O’Connor, 2007