Viardot: Deutsche Lieder

Pauline Viardot (1821-1910) is one of those artists whose name and compositions were forgotten after her death. Despite this, she is one of the most fascinating, versatile and original musicians of the nineteenth century. Alongside her activities as a singer, she was also a pianist, composer, arranger, editor, and pedagogue. Only in recent years has her significance in the musical life of the nineteenth century been gradually recognized, and the range of her work known. The present release contains Viardot’s settings of German texts, primarily composed during her period in Baden-Baden between 1863 and 1871 and songs which were also published in German translation. Miriam Alexandra is of German-Greek ancestry and was born in Heidelberg. She received her vocal training at the music academies in Karlsruhe and Cologne with Christiane Hampe and Klesie Kelly. She then travelled as a Visiting Fellow to Harvard and Cambridge for further studies. During her academic studies, she was a scholarsh