Marie Pleyel

Marie Moke-Pleyel (lithograph by Josef Kriehuber, 1839)

Marie Pleyel, born Marie-Félicité-Denise Moke on 4 July or 4 September 1811[1] in Paris, and died 30 March 1875 in Saint-Josse-ten-Noode, near Brussels, was a Belgian concert pianist.

Early life

With a father from Torhout in Flemish-speaking Belgium who was a language teacher, and a German mother who ran a lingerie shop in the 9th arondissement, Pleyel was trilingual, and studied the piano with Henri Herz, Moscheles, and Kalkbrenner. She gave her first formal recital at the age of eight, amazing the public with her young virtuosity.

The famous critic François Joseph Fétis wrote that he had heard all the famous pianistes, but that none conveyed to him a sentiment of perfection like Madame Pleyel ("...mais je déclare qu'aucun d'eux ne m'a donné, comme Madame Pleyel, le sentiment de perfection.") [2]

Marriage and later career

Berlioz was desperately in love with Pleyel, and in 1830 they became engaged. While he was in Italy, she broke off the engagement to marry Camille Pleyel, son of Ignaz Pleyel, and heir to the piano manufacturing business.

Tomb in Laken Cemetery, Brussels

Notes

  1. ↑ Both dates occur approximately equally: Blom gives July, Slonimsky gives September
  2. ↑ Fétis, François Joseph, Biographie universelle des musiciens et bibliographie générale de la musique (Biographical Encyclopedia of musicians), vol VII, 1860-1868, Paris
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