Pauline Viardort chante Pouchkine 1

Pauline Viardot sings Pushkin: The edition of the 16 songs by Pauline Viardot based on poems by Alexander Sergejewitsch Pushkin is the result of an international collaboration. In 2018, the Parisian publisher Marc Pierre came up with the idea of ​​Furore Verlag to publish this song collection on the occasion of the composer’s 200th birthday in 2021. Michelle Pauline Viardot-García, b. García, (born July 18, 1821 in Paris; † May 18, 1910 there) was one of the most famous and versatile artists of the 19th century.

Century. In the second half of the 19th century she had the musical life of her time in various countries, above all in France, Germany and England and Russia, significantly influenced. She sang, composed and taught, she arranged and edited works by other composers, collected folk song texts and melodies, organized musical salons and also ran an extensive one Correspondence. In this collection are now for the first time – in French and Russian versions – summarized the 16 songs by Pauline Viardot, based on poems by Alexander Sergejewitsch Pushkin (1799–1837).

These melodies are a remarkable example of the rich cultural collaboration between Russia, France and Germany. Pushkin’s poems were highly valued in Russia for their brevity, rhythm and harmony. Turgenev, who knew the great poet’s works very well, read in the drawing room of the Viardots near Paris. It was certainly he who suggested that Pauline set it to music in the original language.

This collection of completely bilingual Russian-French scores, brings together various sources, whose manuscripts and engravings go back more than a hundred years. Among these compositions are four first publications. We are pleased that with the support of the VG Musikedition culture fund this Song collection can now be published.

The documents were collected, adapted and translated into Russian by Marie-Hélène Pierre, Bachelor of Musicology the University of Paris IV-Sorbonne, Nataliya Schinkewitsch, translator and the pianist Laurent Martin. Ingrid Mayer did the German translation.