Barbara Ployer

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Maria Anna Barbara or Babette Ployer was a piano and composition pupil of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, for whom he wrote two piano concertos in 1784, No. 14 KV. 449 and No. 17, KV. 453, which were both premiered at her residence in 1784. She was born on 2nd September 1765 in Sarmingstein, Austria, and died before April, 1811, in Bresane, Croatia. She was the daughter of Franz Kajetan von Ployer, a timber-merchant and tax collector. After her mother died in 1779 she moved to Vienna to live with her uncle, Court Councillor Gottfried Ignaz von Ployer, the agent of the Salzburg court in Vienna, where she came in contact with Mozart. After her marriage she moved to Kreuz in Croatia, where her husband had his estate. Both the concertos that Mozart wrote for her are of the highest quality, and the piano parts are testing, suggesting she was highly accomplished both technically and musically. Joseph Haydn also wrote his finest variations for piano for her, the double variation set in F minor, in 1793.

[edit] References

• Clivel, P. 1993. Mozart and His Circle: A Biographical Dictionary. Yale University Press, New Haven and London. ISBN 0-300-05900-0.
• Dubal, D. 1987 (second edition) The Art of the Piano. Simon and Schuster. ISBN 0-67163-837-8