Is there a link between Chausson's

Poeme

and the doomed

romance of his friend Faure?

Jessica Duchen

investigates

The first manuscript of Chausson's Poeme bears the

inscription Le chant de Vamour triomphant. It indicates

one primary spur behind the work: Ivan Turgenev's

The Song of Triumphant Love, a short story that has

clear resonances with the Russian author's long-

running emotional attachment to the mezzo-soprano

and composer Pauline Viardot. But there may be

another, hitherto unknown, musical link in the origin

of Turgenev's story: a prequel that casts the Poeme

in a light gleaming with irony. It takes the form of

a delicate three-way connection involving another

composer, Gabriel Faure.

In 1843, at the age of 25, Turgenev attended a

performance by Pauline Viardot when she first sang

in St Petersburg, and fell in love with her at once.

She was then 22, but was already one of the most

celebrated mezzo-sopranos of her day. In 1840 she

had married the writer and theatre director Louis

Viardot, 21 years her senior - on her side, a match of

convenience rather than love. Turgenev's passion for

Pauline lasted his whole life, sometimes apparently

unrequited, sometimes not. Gossip suggested that

Pauline's second daughter, Claudie, and son, Paul,

might have been Turgenev's; the truth has never been

established. But Paul, a fine musician, shared with

Turgenev a quality lacking in the uncommunicative

Louis Viardot: he was a great raconteur.

Turgenev took up residence close to the Viardots,

moving around Europe to be near them, first to Baden-

Baden, then London, then back to France once again.

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

\ t >

•

Ivan

Turgenev

friend of the Viardot family

Gabriel Faure . . . friend of

Turgenev

and Viardot family, suitor to Marianne Viardot

Ernest Chausson

friend of

Faure

Pauline Viardot

object of Turgenev's affection

Louis Viardot

husband of Pauline Viardot

Claudie Viardot

daughter of Pauline and Louis (or possibly Turgenev)

PaulViardot

son of Pauline and Louis (or possibly Turgenev)

Marianne Viardot

daughter of Pauline and Louis, courted by Fame

Alphonse Duvernoy

husband of Marianne Viardot

SONG OF TRIUMPHANT LOVE

Fabio

painter

Muzzio (possibly modelled on Faure)

musician

Valeria (possibly modelled on Marianne Viardot)

married to Fabio, object of

'Muzzio

}

s affections

42

The Strad January 2005