Viardot – Ten Songs (1850)

Pauline Viardot – Ten Songs, (1850)  performed by Annick Massis 

Pauline Viardot was a mezzo soprano and composer of Spanish descent, living in Paris. Taught by Reicha and Liszt, she was good friends with Chopin (singing at his funeral in her own arrangement of Mozart’s Requiem), Berlioz, Turgenev, Gounod, and was the inspiration for the character Consuelo in the novel by George Sands – her friend, and Chopin’s lover.