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Anna Caroline Oury

Anna Caroline Oury
Anna Caroline Oury
Born(1806-01-24)24 January 1806
Landshut, Kingdom of Bavaria
Died22 July 1880(1880-07-22) (aged 74)
NationalityGerman
Occupation(s)pianist, composer

Anna Caroline Oury (née de Belleville), also known as Ninette de Belleville, Ninette von Belleville or Ninette de Belleville-Oury (24 January 1806[1] – 22 July 1880), was a German pianist and composer of French ancestry.

Life and career

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Anna Caroline de Belleville, often referred to as "Ninette", was born in Landshut, Bavaria, Germany. She was the daughter of a French aristocrat who was the director of the national Court Opera in Mannheim.[2] She studied with Carl Czerny in Vienna between 1816 and 1820, where she met Beethoven and heard him improvise.[3] In 1829 she traveled to Warsaw where Chopin heard her play impressively enough for him to write about it in a letter, praising her "excellent" playing for its lightness and elegance.[4] Twelve years later, in 1841, Chopin dedicated his Waltz in F minor, Op. Posth. 70, No. 2, to Oury, though it went unpublished until 1855.

In July 1831 she made her London debut in Her Majesty's Theatre with Niccolò Paganini and in October she married Antonio James Oury (1800–1883), a violinist at the King's Theatre in London and the two toured as a duo.[5][6][3] They performed in Germany, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Austria and Russia between 1831 and 1839 before settling in England, excepting a concert tour of Italy in 1846–1847. Working with her husband, she helped to create the Brighton Musical Union in 1847, a club for chamber music modelled after the London Musical Union.[7] The remainder of Anna Caroline Oury's career was spent focusing on composition until her retirement in 1866, writing approximately 180 works for piano in this time.[3] Oury died in Munich in 1880 at the age of 74.

Works

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Oury published more than 200 works, including a number of transcriptions. Selected works include:

  • Souvenir d'Edinbourg (arrangement)
  • Fantasie on the opera L'Africaine
  • La Chasse de Compiègne
  • Plaintes de l'absence
  • Marche Ecossaise
  • Valse brillante
  • Nocturne[8]

References

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  1. ^ Landshut, St. Martin, CB213, M3865, fol. 1460.[clarification needed]
  2. ^ "Persons Related to Chopin". Archived from the original on 25 March 2014. Retrieved 16 October 2010.
  3. ^ a b c Fuller-Maitland, J. A. and Andrew Lamb. "Oury, Anna Caroline". Grove Music Online.
  4. ^ Golberg, Halina (2008) Music in Chopin's Warsaw, New York: Oxford University Press, 281.
  5. ^ Comini, Alessandra (2008). The Changing Image of Beethoven: A Study in Mythmaking.
  6. ^ Thomas, Joseph (1908). Universal Pronouncing Dictionary of Biography and Mythology.
  7. ^ Bashford, Christina "Oury, Antonio James", Grove Music Online.
  8. ^ Ebel, Otto (1913) [1902]. "Belleville-Oury (Emilie)". Women Composers: A Biographical Handbook of Women's Work in Music (3rd ed.). Brooklyn: Chandler-Ebel. pp. 26–27.
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