Pauline Viardot (1821–1910) will be no stranger to readers of this journal – one of the most prominent mezzo sopranos in the history of opera, she was the daughter of Manuel García, the sister of Maria Malibran and the sister-in-law of Charles de Bériot. She was a legend of Italian opera in an era when the conceptualization of the female voice and of the violin's voice ran in parallel and overlapped. Indeed, she had scored an early success performing Auguste-Mathieu Panseron's showpiece for voice and violin Le Songe de Tartini with her celebrated brother-in-law. The text recounts the story of Tartini's dream about the devil playing his violin and infernal bow, producing stirring sounds and sublime harmonies which the composer tried to transcribe; fittingly, Panseron's violin part abounds in double-stops, trills and bariolage. Viardot's copy of the score, held at the British Library, has her autograph on the top right corner of the title page (see Fig. 1). The score instructs the singer to ‘suivez le violon’ – as per the contemporary practice at the Paris Opéra whereby choristers learned their parts by following the violinist-repetiteur – and is significant because violinists looked to singers as ideals of vocality while singers took their cues from the violin.

Fig. 1

Title page of Auguste-Mathieu Panseron, Le Songe de Tartini. Ballade avec accompagnement de violon solo (Paris: Chez Aulagnier, n.d. [1825?]), © British Library Board (Music Collections Hirsch III.974, UIN: BLL01004568445), by permission of the British Library

Viardot of course composed numerous vocal works as well as some instrumental ones, mostly for piano (an instrument she excelled at from childhood), among which can be found two works for violin and piano: Six Morceaux (1868) and Sonatine (1874). Her son, the violinist Paul Viardot (1857–1941), composed three sonatas (1883, 1902, 1931) and an array of lollipops for salon performance (1889–1924). Some of these works have been recorded before – in the case of the Sonatine, a number of times, mostly in the context of ‘women composer’ compilations. Such albums help to rectify the historical neglect of compositions by women which has resulted from traditionally male-dominated music institutions and historiography. I first came across the Sonatine not on one of those albums but on an excellent disc by violinist Ulf Schneider and pianist Stephan Imorde (Ars Musici 2009). This album interspersed works by the Viardots with readings from Turgenev's The Song of Triumphant Love and concluded with Fauré's First Sonata. It was an ingenious piece of programming which wove the music into the Viardots’ personal history: Turgenev became infatuated with Pauline after she performed in Russia and lived in close proximity to her for decades despite the fact that she was married to Louis Viardot; Fauré, who for a time was engaged to Paul's sister Marianne, dedicated his sonata to him.

These new recordings of the violin and piano works of Pauline and Paul Viardot by violinist Reto Kuppel and pianist Wolfgang Manz are the world premiere recordings of the whole set, as proclaimed in large capital letters on the cover: therein lies their convincing raison d’être. One CD contains all the Sonatas of Paul Viardot preceded by the Sonatine by his mother, while the other contains 20 short pieces, typically lasting a few minutes each, by both composers. The Sonatine in A minor, dedicated to Hubert Léonard, Paul's violin teacher, comprises three short movements: a cantilena, a Papageno-ish scherzo, and a bravura gypsy finale. Here Kuppel and Manz offer an unimpeachable if somewhat unadventurous performance; the ‘ad libitum’ section in the finale particularly could have done with an extra dose of el sabor gitano. After all, Pauline believed that her Spanish father had gypsy ancestry – although Manuel García neither confirmed nor denied this.

Paul Viardot's Sonata No. 1 in G major, Sonata No. 2 in B-flat and Sonata No. 3 in A minor show the composer's stylistic development in handling the form, although in truth it is only a modest development, as his last sonata remains solidly grounded in the Romantic language of his first, written almost half a century earlier. The sonatas revel in the lyrical and are in many places constructed out of motives that repeat and sequence; when figures repeated (e.g. No. 1 movements I–II), I missed hearing more changes of colour in the violin. That said, the sheer repetitiveness of some of this music (No. 2, movement III in particular) would make sufficient colour changes a tall order for even the most synaesthetic player. In Sonata No. 1, movement II, the B section should have been wild and fortissimo (as marked in the edition published by Kahnt in Leipzig), not polite and mezzoforte; when the calmer A section returned, the contrast failed to register. In Sonata No. 2, movement I, the section with the unusual marking ‘furioso’ simply passed by as the players barely seemed to break a sweat. In such places, the performers seemed more concerned about neat and tidy playing than risking imperfection so as to embrace a more creative approach; their risk-averse, ‘for posterity’ approach is, unfortunately, typical of the dominant recording ideology in classical music today, which is strangling creativity and innovation.Footnote ¹ Their approach reflects a larger institutional and industry-wide problem, for which these performers alone can hardly be held responsible.

Pauline Viardot's Six Morceaux (1868), written for her son, are miniatures ideally suited to the salon, bursting with character (‘Bohemienne’, ‘Tarentelle’, and so on). These came across with confidence in this recording but in places lacked nuance. For instance, in No. 3 (a lullaby), the descending filigree should have been light and pianissimo, not heavy and mezzoforte. In No. 5, ‘Vielle Chanson’ the figure that repeats four times could have been varied in tempo, dynamic or timbre, yet both players rendered them identically each time, which unfortunately verged on the pedantic.

Alongside these, we find Paul Viardot's Introduction et Caprice (1890), a virtuoso tour de force reminiscent of Wieniawski, delivered with admirable assurance here, and 16 more short pieces – including the Sarasate-esque ‘Mauresque’, ‘En Espagne’ and ‘Gitane’– all expertly played. The exercise in ‘Chinoiserie’ (one of the 6 Pièces of 1902) sounds dated to modern ears – I confess it made me cringe – although nothing in its orientalist aesthetic oversteps that of the stubbornly popular Tambourin Chinois by Fritz Kreisler. The Viennese violinist was, in fact, exactly who came to mind as I listened to recordings of Paul Viardot's own playing dating from 1900 to 1912 – a sweet sound, suave phrasing, finesse in taxing fingerwork, a pleasure taken in dwelling on high notes, and luxurious portamenti of the sort that are quite simply, and regrettably, considered unacceptable today.Footnote ² The sheer panache of Viardot's playing, to say nothing of his laissez-faire tempi, carries a whiff of the fabulous salons his family hosted where supposedly Saint-Saëns showed up to sing in drag.

Finally, I am eagerly awaiting the world premiere recording of the Panseron showpiece that helped launch Pauline's career – which surely played some role, if only subliminal, in the creation of all of the lyricism and virtuosity found on these recordings.