Louise Héritte-Viardot

Dear friends of piano music,

in Heidelberg every stone breathes history. I love walking through the streets and reading the plaques on so many houses as I pass by, on which it is written which historical greats of science and art lived and worked here. But I miss a sign like this on a house, and it took me a long time to even find it - it's only a few streets away and I walked past it innumerable times unsuspecting. It is the house in which Louise Héritte-Viardot lived from 1904 until her death in 1918. Yes, I have to admit that I didn't know her until recently, or at least I didn't see her for what she thought of herself as: as a composer. Even during her lifetime she was unable to assert herself, was perhaps too much overshadowed by her famous parents, but above all she was too much ahead of her time. A woman, born in 1841, who insists on being regarded as a composer and taken seriously. Vain. She earns her living as a singer as long as she is able to do so for health reasons, then as a singing teacher. Where is her estate? Three string quartets have survived, little more. She must have composed all her life. I think the loss is heavy. Again and again I have to suppress the impulse to run over to her house in Zähringer Street, to ring the doorbell, in the hope that no one has tidied the attic for a very, very long time ... to find one of the legendary chests there of music history, dusty, unnoticed for decades, and in it the manuscripts of Louise, all this wonderful music that she lived for and that no one ever wanted to hear. Oh, how terrible this world is, full of heartless ignoramuses, and what a senseless waste of so much spirit and beauty - a life's work for the bin. Dear musicologists of this world, have you really searched thoroughly everywhere? Maybe she destroyed everything herself, out of desperation, maybe it was destroyed otherwise. Nevertheless, I would like to keep a little hope that the estate of Louise Héritte-Viardot will be found, maybe even here, in Heidelberg. Until then I will often walk past her house, see the houses and trees that she saw then, because every stone here breathes history. Dear Louise, you were a great composer and you were right to believe in yourself.

Kerstin