Born in Paris on 18 July 1821, died there on 18 May 1910; Pauline Viardot-Garcia was a French singer, pianist, composer and singing teacher. She was a daughter of the tenor and singing teacher Manuel Garcia and a sister of the singer Maria Malibran; she had piano lessons with Franz Liszt and composition lessons with Anton Reicha. As a mezzo-soprano she appeared from 1839 in London and Paris and in 1849 sang the part of Fides in the premiere of Giacomo Meyerbeer’s Le Prophète. Her salon in Paris and later in Baden-Baden was a meeting place of European musical life; a lifelong friendship connected her with the writer Ivan Turgenev. She composed songs in several languages, salon operettas, piano and chamber music and published singing methods. Two albums connect her with Cybele: French Women Composers appeared in 2011, and on the gala recording Doc Heilein and Friends Gala 2023 – Ich will keine Schokolade (2023) she is represented by one piece.
Pauline Viardot-Garcia
Composer
