Marie Bigot

1786 (Colmar, France) – 1820 (Paris)

Bigot is now best-known for having been piano-teacher to both Mendelssohns, brother and sister, when they were living in Paris. But she was also a close friend of Beethoven, who admired her pianistic skills when she lived in Vienna (as a married woman, she caused a scandal by riding unchaperoned with him in a buggy). She also knew Haydn, and enthusiastically promoted the works of both of them to French audiences. In Paris she studied composition with Cherubini, and also knew the composers Clementi, Cramer and Dussek. Of her own compositions, few survive.