Pauline Viardot

Of Spanish descent, Viardot earned early recognition for the distinctive color of her mezzo-soprano. Although broad popular favor came slowly, the salons and creative circles she entered gained lasting depth from her presence. Her performances of scores by Massenet, Gounod, and Fauré supplied those composers with their first substantial professional footing. Initial instruction came from her father, Manuel Garcia, whose death occurred when she turned eleven; she then pursued further training under her mother while taking piano lessons from Meysenberg and Liszt and lessons in composition from Reicha. On stage she appeared in operas by Rossini, Glinka, Dargomizhsky, Meyerbeer, Berlioz, and Gluck, and she also championed songs by Brahms, Rimsky-Korsakov, and Tchaikovsky. Viardot became the first non-Russian singer to present the Italian operatic repertory in that country and simultaneously introduced Western listeners to music from Russia. In her own right she produced many original songs and created vocal adaptations of existing instrumental pieces; Chopin voiced particular satisfaction with the way she shaped his mazurkas.