Marie Bigot

Marie Bigot, unmarked woodcut, around 1810

Anne Marie Cathérine Marie Bigot de Morogues, b. Kiené (born March 3, 1786 in Colmar , † September 16, 1820 in Paris ) was a French pianist and composer .

Life

Memorial plaque on the house where Marie Bigot was born in Colmar, 48 Rue des Marchands

Marie Bigot was a daughter from the marriage of 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 (born May 25, 1765 in Berlin ) on July 9, 1804 , with whom she moved to Vienna in the same year . Bigot got a job as a librarian with the Russian ambassador and benefactor of Beethoven , Count Andrej Rasumowsky .

During her years in Vienna, Marie Bigot was personally known to numerous musicians, including Joseph Haydn . One anecdote says: “When she played for Haydn for the first time, this venerable old man was so moved that he took her in his arms and exclaimed enthusiastically: 'Oh, my dear girl, it’s not me who was making this music 'You composed it yourself.' […] On the same piece that she had played for him, he wrote with his own hand: 'On February 20, 1805, Joseph Haydn was happy.' ”Shortly afterwards, in March / April 1805, she performed for the first time in a concert by the wholesaler Würth with a B Major piano concerto by Mozart .

She was also at times a piano student of Ludwig van Beethoven , who became friends with her and her husband Paul, as evidenced by several letters. We have also received an anecdote according to which Beethoven said to her after interpreting one of his piano sonatas: “That is not exactly the character I wanted to give the piece ... but continue; that’s not quite me, that’s better than me. ”This possibly refers to the famous Appassionata , the autograph of which Beethoven gave to Marie Bigot as a gift after it went to press.

At least four letters from Beethoven to the Bigot couple have survived: The first is dated March 4, 1807 and contained a (naive) invitation to Marie Bigot and her little sister Caroline for a walk in the sunshine - when her husband was absent. His overly jealous reaction then gave rise to a detailed letter of apology to both spouses with the much-quoted sentence: "... in any case, one of my first principles is never to have anything other than friendship with someone else's wife."

Joseph Schmidt-Görg suspected in 1966 that Marie Bigot was also that “M.” in Beethoven's diary-like note from the summer of 1807 when he was in Baden near Vienna : “Only love - yes, only you can give you a happier life - oh God - let me finally find her - that one - that strengthens me in virtue - that is allowed to me - Baaden on July 24th when the M. drove past and it seemed as if she was looking at me - ". On the other hand, Harry Goldschmidt takes the thesis that the note refers to Beethoven's love for Josephine Brunsvik , to whom he wrote at least twelve, sometimes passionate, love letters between 1804 and 1807; a love affair that Josephine had under pressure from her noble family - u. a. her mother, Countess Anna von Brunsvik, who was only mentioned in family correspondence in the family correspondence , - broke off in 1807: “In contrast to Marie Bigot, her presence in Baden at the time in question can at least be attested. (...) The sight of the mother passing by, looking at him, immediately evoked the unresolved conflict with the daughter in the person concerned. "

At the beginning of 1809 the music writer and composer Johann Friedrich Reichardt visited Marie Bigot and wrote about her to his wife on January 26th, 1809: “Of the many large and small pieces of music that I have heard again in the last few days and with which I have played a whole bunch if I wanted to name them all or even describe them to you, because everything here lives and weaves in music, I have to give you a special mention of a very pleasant evening with Frau von Bigot. She had arranged it to please me so that I could hear the great Beethovian sonatas and trios of which I recently spoke to her with great sympathy. [...] Frau von Bigot had invited the violinist Schupanzig , whose excellent talent is nowhere more certain and more perfect than in the performance of Beethov's things. In the evening he accompanied the virtuoso's excellent playing with all its delicacy and piquant originality. She played five great Beethoven sonatas very masterfully; one was always more magnificent than the other; it was the prime of a full, exuberant artistic life. In all 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 from the heart of such an artist who lives his art fully and watches with it dreams, and wakes dreaming. A small, well-chosen company around a round tea table thoroughly enjoyed every note. "

At the end of 1809 Marie Bigot moved with her family to Paris , where she became a very popular 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 their piano students when they were children.

She died of tuberculosis when she was only 34 .

Works

• Piano Sonata in B flat major, Op. 1, ca.1806
• Andante varié in B flat major op. 2, approx. 1805 - new edition ed. by Dieter M. Backes, Certosa Verlag
• Rondeau , 1818
• Suite d'études , 1817/18 - new edition 1992

literature

• Edme-François-Antoine-Marie Miel , Necrology. In: Le Moniteur universel , vol. 32, No. 313 of November 8, 1820, p. 1484 ( digitized version )
• Edme-François-Antoine-Marie Miel, biography (de Madame Bigot). In: Revue Musicale , 1833, pp. 316-318
• Antoine François Marmontel , Les Pianistes célèbres. Silhouettes et Médaillons , Paris 1878, pp. 269f. ( Digitized version )
• Robert Perreau, Une grande pianiste colmarienne, Marie Kiené, épouse Bigot de Morogues. In: Annuaire de la Société historique et littéraire de Colmar , Vol. 12 (1962), pp. 59-67
• Joseph Schmidt-Görg , Who was "the M." in an important note by Beethoven ?. In: Beethoven-Jahrbuch , vol. 5, 1961/64 (1966), pp. 75–79.
• Harry Goldschmidt , To the Immortal Beloved . An inventory , Leipzig: Deutscher Verlag für Musik, 1977
• Marie-Elisabeth Tellenbach , Beethoven and his “ Immortal Beloved ” Josephine Brunswick. Your fate and the influence on Beethoven's work , Zurich: Atlantis, 1983
• Ludwig van Beethoven, correspondence. Complete edition , ed. by Sieghard Brandenburg , Volume 1, Munich 1996, No. 266, 269, 270, 271, 272 and 273
• Monika Schwarz-Danuser, How did the autograph of the “Appassionata” come to Paris? - Approaches to the pianist and composer Marie Bigot de Morogues. In: Beethoven's standard? Women composers in the shadow of the genius cult , ed. by B. Brand and M. Helmig, Munich 2001, pp. 86-105
• Klaus Martin Kopitz , Rainer Cadenbach (Eds.) A. a .: Beethoven from the point of view of his contemporaries in diaries, letters, poems and memories. Volume 1: Adamberger - Kuffner. Edited by the Beethoven Research Center at the Berlin University of the Arts. Henle, Munich 2009, ISBN 978-3-87328-120-2 , pp. 71-74.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Edme-François-Antoine-Marie Miel, Nécrologie. In: Le moniteur universel , Vol. 32, No. 313 of November 8, 1820, p. 1484
2. ↑ Allgemeine Musikische Zeitung , Vol. 7, No. 29 of April 17, 1805, Col. 469
3. ↑ Kopitz / Cadenbach (2009), No. 71.
4. ↑ The autograph came to the Bibliothèque nationale de France via the Bigot family .
5. ↑ Brandenburg (1996), No. 271.
6. ↑ Brandenburg (1996), No. 273.
7. ↑ Goldschmidt (1977), p. 46; see. also Tellenbach (1983)
8. ^ Johann Friedrich Reichardt , Vertraute Letters written on a trip to Vienna and the Austrian States at the end of 1808 and at the beginning of 1809 , Amsterdam 1810, Volume 1, pp. 333f.

Web links

• Lexical article at MUGI - "Music and Gender on the Internet"
• Illustration of the birth house with plaque
• Lexicon article by the Sophie Drinker Institute