Saturday, April 11, 2026

Song by Pauline Viardot

 Thanks to Poundie Burstein for this one, which he describes as follows:

The piece is "Aime Moi” (1864), a song by Pauline Viardot based on a Chopin mazurka [op. 33 no. 2] to which she added a vocal melody (with text by Louis Pomey). At the end of her song, she superposed a ^5-^6-^7-^8 in the melody above Chopin’s original mazurka (and she does something similar in the key of V twice earlier within the song).   (email communication 22 March 2026)

Here is a comparison of the designs of Chopin's original and Viardot's arrangement.


Chopin's main theme from the first edition:


Viardot's opening. Note the inner-voice potential for ^5-^6-^7-^8 (in magenta).


Same with some parsing of intervals and lines. Note the wedge created by the rising line below and the descending line above.


In the final statement of the theme, clear realization and superposition of the rising line:

An excellent example of a professional musician's frank knowledge--and in this case exploitation--of the rising line from ^5 to ^8.