Pauline Viardot (1821-1910)

Few women in the nineteenth century had more renown than Pauline Viardot. This polymath artist, a singer, composer, teacher, pianist, salonnière, art collector, and epistolarian, made music a weapon of cultural diplomacy, rallying around her person, whether in salons or on tours, the flower of musical, artistic, and political Europe in her times.

Though Viardot’s corpus of public writings is slim indeed, her abundant private correspondence reflects a substantial investment in the written word, one that extended throughout her life. As far as we know, Viardot wrote for the public on only a handful of occasions, each time in order to affirm the principles of her teaching. In 1875, she explained her reasons for leaving her professorial post at the Paris Conservatoire in a letter of resignation addressed both to the Director, Ambroise Thomas, and to the press. This letter, published notably in the Revue et Gazette musicale de Paris and Le Ménestrel, would remain her most significant public statement. In 1880, she published with Heugel a singing manual, Une heure d’étude : exercices pour voix de femme, prefacing the exercises used at the Conservatoire with a series of recommendations for her students. Finally, in the last years of her life, Viardot agreed to discuss her memories in the press, resulting notably in interviews published in Le Temps in 1900 and Le Gaulois in 1905, which afford precious glimpses at her domestic and artistic life.

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firstnamePauline
lastnameViardot
birth year1821
death year1910

Publications (6)