When it is not simply "Pauline Viardot", it most commonly appears in association with her maiden name García or the unaccented form, Garcia.

[3] After her father's death in 1832, her mother, soprano Joaquina Sitches, took over her singing lessons, and forced her to focus her attention on her voice and away from the piano.

[8] She remained an outstanding pianist all her life, and often played duets with her friend Frédéric Chopin, who approved of her arranging some of his mazurkas as songs, and even assisted her in this.

Liszt, Ignaz Moscheles, Adolphe Adam, Camille Saint-Saëns and others have left accounts of her excellent piano playing.

[8][9] Her friend George Sand (who later based the heroine of her 1843 novel Consuelo on her) had a role in discouraging her from accepting de Musset's proposal, directing her instead to Louis Viardot (1800–1883).

The Russian novelist Ivan Turgenev in particular fell passionately in love with her after hearing her rendition of The Barber of Seville in Russia in 1843.

In 1845, he left Russia to follow Pauline and eventually installed himself in the Viardot household, treated her four children as his own, and adored her until he died.

[9] Renowned for her wide vocal range and her dramatic roles on stage, Viardot gave performances that inspired composers such as Frédéric Chopin, Berlioz, Camille Saint-Saëns (who dedicated Samson and Delilah to her, and wanted her to sing the title role, but she declined on account of her age[10]), and Giacomo Meyerbeer, for whom she created Fidès in Le prophète.

She spoke fluent Spanish, French, Italian, English, German, and Russian, and composed songs in a variety of national techniques.

She was the mezzo-soprano in the Tuba mirum movement of Mozart's Requiem at Chopin's funeral at Église de la Madeleine in Paris on 30 October 1849, which she performed together with a soprano, incognito behind a black curtain.

She and her family left France due to her husband's public opposition to Emperor Napoleon III and settled in Baden-Baden, Germany.

[13] After the fall of Napoleon III later in 1870, they returned to France, where she taught at the Paris Conservatory and, until her husband's death in 1883, presided over a music salon in the Boulevard Saint-Germain.

Her students included Ada Adini, Désirée Artôt, Selma Ek, Emma Engdahl-Jägerskiöld, Marie Hanfstängl, Yelizaveta Lavrovskaya, Felia Litvinne, Emilie Mechelin, Aglaja Orgeni, Anna Eugénie Schoen-René, Mafalda Salvatini, Raimund von zur-Mühlen, and Maria Wilhelmj.

Her pupil Natalia Iretskaya later became the teacher of Oda Slobodskaya and of Lydia Lipkowska, who in turn taught Virginia Zeani.

She preserved it in a shrine in her Paris home, where it was visited by many notable people, including Rossini, who genuflected, and Tchaikovsky, who said he was "in the presence of divinity".

However, her works were of professional quality and Franz Liszt declared that, with Pauline Viardot, the world had finally found a woman composer of genius.

[9] Having as a young girl studied with Liszt and with the music theorist and composer Anton Reicha, she was both an outstanding pianist and a complete all-around professional musician.

Between 1864 and 1874 she wrote three salon operas – Trop de femmes (1867), L'ogre (1868), and Le dernier sorcier (1869), all to libretti by Ivan Turgenev – and over fifty Lieder.