Chopin / Kancheva / Angelov / Tanev / Kader - Viardot: Songs - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

Pauline Viardot (1821-1910) was one of the most extraordinary women in the history of music. Daughter of the Spanish tenor Manuel García and sister of the mezzo-soprano Maria Malibran, she studied piano with Liszt and counterpoint and harmony with Reicha, made her debut, also as a mezzo, at the age of sixteen and went on to inspire composers of the stature of Berlioz, Chopin, Gounod, Meyerbeer, Saint-Saëns, Schumann and Wagner, and she was no mean composer herself, as these passionate songs demonstrate. Twelve of them are arrangements of mazurkas by her good friend Frédéric Chopin; the others set some major poems in Russian, a language she spoke fluently. Album Tracks 1. No. 1. the Flower 2. No. 3. I Loved Him 3. No. 1. at Dawn 4. No. 4. Midnight Images 5. No. 2. the Crag 6. No. 3. the Answer 7. No. 5. for Distant Shores of Homeland 8. No. 4. the Light of Evening Quietly Fades 9. No. 1. Tell Me Why 10. No. 9. the Willow Tree 11. No. 12. Stars 12. No. 6. Invocation 13. No. 4. Separation 14. No. 2. Upon the Hills of Georgia 15. No. 53. Old Man, Harsh Husband 16. No. 1. Seize-Ans 17. No. 2. Aime-Moi 18. No. 3. Plainte D'amour 19. No. 4. Coquette 20. No. 5. L'oiselet 21. No. 6. Separation 22. No. 7. La Fete 23. No. 8. Faible Coeur 24. No. 9. La Jeune Fille 25. No. 10. Berceuse 26. No. 11. La Danse 27. No. 12. La Beaute