Marguerite de Pachmann Labori (14 December 1864 – 3 July 1952), born Anna Louisa Margaret Okey, was an Australian-born pianist, composer, and music educator. She married two famous men, Russian pianist

Vladimir de Pachmann Vladimir de Pachmann or Pachman (27 July 18486 January 1933) was a pianist of Russian-German ethnicity, especially noted for performing the works of Chopin and for his eccentric performing style. Biography Pachmann was born in Odessa, Ukraine as ...

and French lawyer

Fernand Labori Fernand-Gustave-Gaston Labori (April 18, 1860 – March 14, 1917) was a French attorney. He was born in Reims and educated at the Faculty of Law of Paris. In his professional life, he defended the accused in some of the most prominent polit ...

Early life

Anna Louisa Margaret Okey (or Oakey, or O'Key) was born in Pipeclay Diggings,

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, the daughter of William Okey and Anna Maria King Blade Okey. She began learning to play the piano in Australia, but focused her training in England, while still a young child. She studied with

Henry Wylde Henry Wylde (22 May 1822 – 13 March 1890) was an English conductor, composer, teacher and music critic. Background Henry Wylde was born at Bushey, Hertfordshire, elder son of Henry Wylde (1795–1876) and Martha Lucy née Paxton. His fat ...

and

Ferdinand Praeger Ferdinand Praeger (22 January 1815 – 2 September 1891) (aka Ferdinand Christian Wilhelm Praeger) was a composer, music teacher, pianist and writer. He is now best known for his controversial biography of Richard Wagner, ''Wagner As I Knew Hi ...

at the

Royal Academy of Music The Royal Academy of Music (RAM) in London, England, is the oldest conservatoire in the UK, founded in 1822 by John Fane and Nicolas-Charles Bochsa. It received its royal charter in 1830 from King George IV with the support of the first Duke of ...

in London. In 1882, she heard Vladimir de Pachmann play in concert, and went to Germany to study with him. They married in London in 1884.F. Forster Buffen,
Musical Celebrities
' (London, Chapman & Hall, 1893), pages 61-64.

Career

Okey began her professional music career in London, and touring in Britain. After marriage, she returned to performing in 1887, in Berlin. Also in 1887, she accompanied

Lillian Nordica Lillian Nordica (December 12, 1857 – May 10, 1914) was an American opera singer who had a major stage career in Europe and her native country. Nordica established herself as one of the foremost dramatic sopranos of the late 19th and early 20t ...

at the

Crystal Palace Crystal Palace may refer to: Places Canada * Crystal Palace Complex (Dieppe), a former amusement park now a shopping complex in Dieppe, New Brunswick * Crystal Palace Barracks, London, Ontario * Crystal Palace (Montreal), an exhibition building ...

. She toured in the United States in 1890, and again in 1892. She also composed; her compositions including a piano

concerto A concerto (; plural ''concertos'', or ''concerti'' from the Italian plural) is, from the late Baroque era, mostly understood as an instrumental composition, written for one or more soloists accompanied by an orchestra or other ensemble. The typi ...

in F minor, a

sonata Sonata (; Italian: , pl. ''sonate''; from Latin and Italian: ''sonare'' rchaic Italian; replaced in the modern language by ''suonare'' "to sound"), in music, literally means a piece ''played'' as opposed to a cantata (Latin and Italian ''cant ...

for violin and piano, and an opera, ''Yato'' (1913), which was produced in several cities. In widowhood after her second husband's death in 1917, she wrote and taught piano, and gave a rare recital in 1930 in London. In 1935, she published an edition of Chopin scores annotated according to Vladimir de Pachmann's method.

Personal life

Okey married Vladimir de Pachmann in 1884; they had two sons together, Adrian and Leonide, before they divorced. Her second husband was a French lawyer and politician, Fernand Labori, known for his role in the

Dreyfus affair The Dreyfus affair (french: affaire Dreyfus, ) was a political scandal that divided the French Third Republic from 1894 until its resolution in 1906. "L'Affaire", as it is known in French, has come to symbolise modern injustice in the Francop ...

. They had three daughters together, Violette, Denise, and Odette. Fernand Labori died in 1917. Odette Labori married

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as his second wife in 1927. Marguerite de Pachmann Labori survived

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

in occupied France; she died in 1952, aged 87 years, in Millery. Her grave is in

Montparnasse Cemetery Montparnasse Cemetery (french: link=no, Cimetière du Montparnasse) is a cemetery in the Montparnasse quarter of Paris, in the city's 14th arrondissement. The cemetery is roughly 47 acres and is the second largest cemetery in Paris. The cemetery ...

Houghton Library Houghton Library, on the south side of Harvard Yard adjacent to Widener Library, is Harvard University's primary repository for rare books and manuscripts. It is part of the Harvard College Library, the library system of Harvard's Faculty of Art ...

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

has a collection of Fernand and Marguerite Labori papers.

References

External links

* Mark Mitchell,
Vladimir De Pachmann: A Piano Virtuoso's Life and Art
' (Indiana University Press 2002). A biography of Marguerite de Pachmann's first husband and musical mentor * Edward Blickstein, Gregor Benko,
Chopin's Prophet: The Life of Pianist Vladimir de Pachmann
' (Scarecrow Press 2013). Another biography of her first husband {{DEFAULTSORT:Marguerite DE PACHMANN-LABORI

Recordings A record, recording or records may refer to: An item or collection of data Computing * Record (computer science), a data structure ** Record, or row (database), a set of fields in a database related to one entity ** Boot sector or boot record, r ...

1952 deaths Australian pianists Women pianists Australian composers Australian women composers Australian expatriates in France