This is an invitation to a voluntary project regarding a very small-known french composer of the romantic period who goes by the name
Jean-Amédée Lefroid de Méreaux. On YouTube, there have been video uploads of his works - primarily piano pieces - in which mostly midi is used to showcase the brilliant genius of this long-deceased and almost forgotten composer. But still, midi cannot bring the justice Amédée Mereaux' music deserves.
The name
Méreaux might ring a bell in some people reading this thread. The cause of that is thanks to his most famous and difficulty-breaking piano works Amédée Méreaux has arguably ever written:
60 Grandes Études pour piano, Op. 63. A YouTube channel named Classical Nerd has made a video about these 60 Etudes 9 months ago as of this date, while many other channels like
TheExarion,
Demit and
Mendes have uploaded several midi performances of his Op. 63 and other pieces as well.
Human performances of these pieces exist on YouTube too - Seon-Yong Hwang, Chad G Music (Chad Gardner) and Adam Englund are pianists who have uploaded performances of Mereaux' music on their channels, consisting mainly of his 60 Etudes.
I have been following Amédée Méreaux' works for quite a long time and thought many times about launching a project regarding his music, life and career. Very little is known about his life and career since he carries a very small role in the entirety of classical music - but I have decided to devote my time to uncovering as much as possible about him. And I have made good success in researching and finding most of his works; I have made a list of every Opus works and their available scores, including links that take you to either imslp.org or gallica.bnf.fr to look at and download them.
In total, there are 43 Opus works left of 119 (121) to be discovered on the internet.
The majority of these scores come from the gallica.bnf website:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/d2kd9mm3iip7rfc/Méreaux Works Project.docx?dl=0
Although it is a fact that people listening to the works of Méreaux - specifically his 60 Etudes Op. 63 -speak of there not being any musicality within those pieces or his music being a failed attempt of expressing emotions, from my perspective, those words are only directed at his Etudes; his other works seem to be actually very fond of emotion and energy. Still, I have to say that his compositions are very virtuosic and perhaps strange in their own way. What I can conclude from his music other than his Op. 63, which solely relies on technical and musical skills, is how unique Méreaux is in his own way, such as Beethoven, Mozart, Bach or any other composers are unique and special in their own manners and ways, such as every other human being. But do not forget: it is not my intent to say that Méreaux is as grand and unique as, let's say, Bach or Beethoven. This matter is of pure subjectivity, which I find quite a fitting word to describe the essence of music, not the music itself, as it cannot be described with words. His 60 Etudes still are special and hold musicality within themselves whatsoever, as I view it.
After all this writing, I hope I have been satisfying the people with what I can provide about Amédée Méreaux. I humbly ask anyone who is ready to volunteer for this project to be very sure about their decision. I would be very grateful and pleased to really get this project going and achieve success together in finding anything more about Méreaux.
The goals of this project will be, as already said, finding more about his life, career and works, such as anything else that will help uncover yet more about this composer. For the working "base" I have created a Discord server named
The Méreaux Project and have already prepared the majority of things needed for the server. It is as follows:
https://discord.gg/SJsPnSf
I am Sukitte and I wish you, whoever is reading this thread, a good day.