Marie Pleyel
French pianist, composer and music educator (1811–1875)
Marie-Félicité-Denise Pleyel (née Moke; 4 July or 4 September 1811 – 30 March 1875) 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 arrondissement, Pleyel was born in Paris and was trilingual. She 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 pianists, 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.").
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.
Pleyel was one of the most admired pianists of the 1830s. In 1848, she became chair of the piano department of the Brussels Conservatoire.
She died in Sint-Joost-ten-Node, near Brussels.
The public source identifies “Marie Pleyel” as french pianist, composer and music educator (1811–1875). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Marie, Pleyel and French.
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The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 2, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q437228. VIAF identifies the subject as 56878338. The Library of Congress control number is no2011082620. 4 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 1 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1811, 1875, 1830 and 1848.
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This entry incorporates text from “Marie Pleyel” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.