| Anna Caroline Oury | |
| Birth Date: | 24 January 1806 |
| Birth Place: | Landshut, Kingdom of Bavaria |
| Nationality: | German |
| Occupation: | pianist, composer |
Anna Caroline Oury (née De Belleville), also known as Ninette de Belleville, Ninette von Belleville or Ninette de Belleville-Oury (24 January 1806[1] – 22 July 1880), was a German pianist and composer of French ancestry.
Anna Caroline de Belleville, often referred to as "Ninette", was born in Landshut, Bavaria, Germany. She was the daughter of a French aristocrat who was the director of the national Court Opera in Mannheim.[2] She studied with Carl Czerny in Vienna between 1816 and 1820, where she met Beethoven and heard him improvise.[3] In 1829 she traveled to Warsaw where Chopin heard her play impressively enough for him to write about it in a letter, praising her "excellent" playing for its lightness and elegance.[4] Twelve years later, in 1841, Chopin dedicated his Waltz in F minor, Op. Posth. 70, No. 2, to Mme. Oury, though it went unpublished until 1855.
In July 1831 she made her London debut in Her Majesty's Theatre with Niccolò Paganini and in October she married Antonio James Oury (1800–1883), a violinist at the King's Theatre in London and the two toured as a duo.[5] [6] [7] They performed in Germany, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Austria and Russia between 1831 and 1839 before settling in England, excepting a concert tour of Italy in 1846–7. Working with her husband, she helped to create the Brighton Musical Union in 1847, a club for chamber music modeled after the London Musical Union.[8] The remainder of Anna Caroline Oury's career was spent focusing on composition until her retirement in 1866, writing approximately 180 works for piano in this time.[9] Oury died in Munich in 1880 at the age of 74.
Oury published more than 200 works, including a number of transcriptions. Selected works include: