Marie Emmanuelle Bayon Louis

Marie-Emmanuelle Bayon Louis was a French composer, pianist, and salonnière. Contemporaries credited Mlle Bayon for making the fortepiano popular in France. In 1770 she married the architect Victor Louis. Her surviving works are, as Bayon, a collection of six keyboard sonatas, three of them with violin accompaniment, opus 1 (1769), and, as Louis, the two-act opéra-comique, Fleur d’épine ("May-Flower"), first performed in 1776. Other works discussed during her lifetime include further instrumental chamber music and opéra-comiques, and music for La fête de Saint Pierre performed in 1771.