Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev

Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev (Oryol, 1818 – Bougival, near Paris, 1883) was one of the central figures of nineteenth-century Russian literature. Holding liberal ideas and sympathetic to the culture of Western Europe, he is usually classed as a realist, although some of his late works incorporate fantastic elements. He was also the first Russian novelist to achieve wide renown in the West.

In 1843 he met the Spanish mezzo-soprano Pauline Viardot in Saint Petersburg, and maintained a bond with her and her husband that lasted all his life. From then on he spent much of his years outside Russia, with the Viardots or close to them, mainly in France and in Baden-Baden. His love of music, always intense, was strengthened by Pauline Viardot, and he came to know personally almost all the leading musicians of his time, both in Russia and in the West. He occasionally contributed articles on opera to Russian journals and wrote French libretti for operettas, with music by Viardot and performed by her pupils. One of them, Le dernier sorcier, orchestrated by Eduard Lassen and perhaps also by Liszt, was staged in Richard Pohl's German translation in Weimar (1869), and in Karlsruhe and Baden-Baden (1870). He also wrote or translated poems that Viardot set to music between 1864 and 1874.

His most important contribution to music was his role as an intermediary between Russian and Western musicians. He was the first to make Gounod's music known in Russia and, through Viardot, the first to disseminate a good part of Russian music in the West. Although his conservative taste led him to sympathise more with Tchaikovsky, whom he admired, than with the Russian nationalist school, he also helped to make Tchaikovsky's work known. He further assisted many Russian musicians who travelled abroad. His correspondence, especially with Viardot in French and with V. P. Botkin in Russian, is a valuable source on the musical life of the period. Music, moreover, plays a significant role in many of his novels and stories.