Alexandre Goria: Melancolie,

A beautiful “nocturne carateristique“ (no.4 to be precise). Melancoly is a gloomy state of mind, especially when habitual or prolonged. It can also be sober thoughtfulness or being depressed. Interestingly, the opposite is something like “happiness“. To me, the first main theme can be considered as a happy melody, very light and airy. I’ll never understand these names of pieces... Goria (1823-1860) was a French virtuoso pianist and composer recognised among amateurs enthusiasts for his numerous salon pieces of different styles, which enjoyed great success at their time. He had for piano teachers Adolphe-Francois Laurent (1796–1867), teacher of Jules Massenet, and Pierre-Joseph-Guillaume Zimmerman, teacher of Charles-Valentin Alkan and César Franck, following a course of harmony under the direction of Victor Dourlen shortly thereafter. He was in very good terms with Bohemian composer Carl Czerny when he lived in Vienna for some time, and was also a very close friend of the American composer Louis Moreau Gottschalk, who dedicated his composition Le Bananier to him. Goria wrote over a hundred works for piano, including studies, fantasias, whims, solo concerts, nocturnes of various themes, polkas, mazurkas, lullabies, ballads and “révêries“. He was a highly acclaimed musician specially for his Étude de concert, Op. 7 and his brilliant fantasias for piano on many theatrical works such as Plaintes de la jeune fille and other transcriptions of lieder by Franz Schubert and other composers. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- - A method to find scores: - My donation link to keep the channel growing: Thanks for listening :-)