3 MARCH 2019

LINDSAY COOPER - UK 
BORN 3 MARCH 

Lindsay Cooper was an English bassoon and oboe player, composer and political activist. Best known for her work with the band Henry Cow, she was also a member of Comus, National Health, News from Babel and David Thomas and the Pedestrians. She collaborated with a number of musicians, including Chris Cutler and Sally Potter, and co-founded the Feminist Improvising Group. She wrote scores for film and TV and a song cycle Oh Moscow which was performed live around the world in 1987. She also recorded a number of solo albums, including Rags (1980), The Gold Diggers (1983), and Music For Other Occasions (1986).

Cooper was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in the late 1970s, but did not disclose it to the musical community until the late 1990s when her illness prevented her from performing live. In September 2013, Cooper died from the illness at the age of 62.

♫ LISTEN

Horse Waltz by Lindsay Cooper  

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MARIE BIGOT - FRANCE
BORN 3 MARCH

Marie Bigot was a French piano teacher whose full name was Marie Kiéné Bigot de Morogues. As a composer she is best known for her sonatas and études. She became a friend of Salieri. Her husband being the librarian of Count Razumovsky, she became friendly with Beethoven, who admired her playing. She was the first to play for him, from the autograph, his newly written Appassionata Sonata,impressing him so much that he told her, "That is not exactly the character I wanted to give this piece; but go right on. If it is not wholly mine it is something better."

During her lifetime, Marie Bigot was a well-respected and well-known musician, not just in Paris where she spent most of her working life, but further afield in Europe. Today, there is little information about Marie Bigot that does not come from material that casts her in a secondary role to others - as the muse of Haydn, the love interest of Beethoven (unsubstantiated), the teacher of Mendelssohn and Hensel. Despite an obviously successful performing, teaching and composing career, the extent of her involvement in and influence on nineteenth-century musical life must be pieced together slowly from contemporary sources.

♫ LISTEN

Suite d'Etudes by Marie Bigot

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