Marie Bigotaus classic

Anne Marie Cathérine Marie Bigot de Morogues, geb. Kiené (* 3 March 1786 in Colmar; † 16 September 1820 in Paris) was a Austrian-French pianist and composer.

Life

Marie Bigot was a daughter of the marriage between the violinist Joseph Kiené and the pianist Catharina Leyer. The family moved to Neuchâtel in 1791, where Marie married the French nobleman Paul Bigot de Morogues (* 25 May 1765 in Berlin) on 9 July 1804, with whom she moved to Vienna in the same year. Bigot obtained a position there as librarian to Beethoven’s Russian envoy and patron, Count Andrej Rasumowsky.

During her years in Vienna, Marie Bigot was personally acquainted with numerous musicians, including Joseph Haydn. One anecdote says: “The first time she played before Haydn, this venerable old man was so moved that he embraced her and exclaimed enthusiastically: ‘Oh, my dear girl, it is not I who made this music, you yourself composed it.’ … On the same piece she had played for him, he wrote in his own hand: ‘On 20 February 1805 Joseph Haydn has been happy.'” Shortly afterwards, in March/April 1805, she appeared for the first time in a concert given by the wholesaler Würth, playing a B flat major piano concerto by Mozart.

She was also for a time a piano pupil of Ludwig van Beethoven, who became friends with her and her husband Paul, as evidenced by several letters. There is also a surviving anecdote according to which Beethoven said to her after interpreting one of his piano sonatas: “That’s not exactly the character I wanted to give the piece…, but go on; that’s not quite me, that’s better than me.” This may refer to the famous Appassionata, whose autograph Beethoven gave away to Marie Bigot after it was printed.

At least four letters from Beethoven to the Bigot couple have survived: The first is dated 4 March 1807 and contained a (naïve) invitation to Marie Bigot and her little sister Caroline to go for a drive in the sunshine – when her husband was absent. The latter’s excessively jealous reaction was then the occasion for a detailed letter of apology to both spouses with the oft-quoted sentence: “… nevertheless, it is one of my first principles never to be in any other than friendly relations with another’s wife”.

At the beginning of 1809, the music writer and composer Johann Friedrich Reichardt stayed with Marie Bigot and wrote about her to his wife on 26 January 1809: “Of the many large and small pieces of music that I have heard again in the last few days, and with which I could fill entire sheets if I wanted to name or even describe them all to you, for everything here lives and weaves in music, I must mention one very pleasant evening with Frau von Bigot in particular. She had arranged it for my benefit, in order to let me hear the great Beethoven sonatas and trio’s, of which I recently spoke to her with great participation. … Frau von Bigot had invited the violinist Schupanzig, whose excellent talent is nowhere more clearly and perfectly expressed than in the performance of Beethoven’s works. He accompanied the virtuoso’s excellent playing throughout the evening with all his subtlety and piquant originality. She played five great sonatas by Beethoven quite masterfully; one was always more magnificent than the other; it was the flowering of a full and luxuriant artistic life. In all these things there is a stream of imagination, a depth of feeling for which there are no words, only sounds, and which only come into the heart and out of the heart of such an artist who lives his art completely and dreams and wakes with it. A small, quite select company around a round tea table also enjoyed every note quite intimately.”

At the end of 1809, Marie Bigot moved with her family to Paris, where she became an extremely sought-after piano teacher. There she made the acquaintance of the Mendelssohn family. Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, born in 1809, and his sister Fanny Mendelssohn, born in 1805, both became her piano students.

She died of tuberculosis at the age of only 34.

Source Wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marie_Bigot