Georges Amédée Saint-Clair Mathias (14 October 1826 – 14 October 1910) was a French composer, pianist and teacher.

Mathias was born in Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

. He studied at the Paris Conservatory with François Bazin

François Bazin

François Emmanuel Joseph Bazin was a well-known French opera composer during the nineteenth century. His works are not widely performed today.-Biography:...

, Auguste Barbereau, Augustin Savard

Marie Gabriel Augustin Savard

Marie Gabriel Augustin Savard was the father of Marie Emmanuel Augustin Savard. He was a teacher at the Paris Conservatory in tonic solfa, harmony and figured bass. Among his pupils were Jules Massenet, Cécile Chaminade, Eduard Reuss, and Edward MacDowell. Massenet describes him fondly in his...

 and Fromental Halévy

Fromental Halévy

Jacques-François-Fromental-Élie Halévy, usually known as Fromental Halévy , was a French composer. He is known today largely for his opera La Juive.-Early career:...

, composition with Friedrich Kalkbrenner

Friedrich Kalkbrenner

Friedrich Wilhelm Michael Kalkbrenner was a German pianist, composer, piano teacher and piano manufacturer who spent most of his life in England and France. Before the advent of Frédéric Chopin, Sigismond Thalberg and Franz Liszt, Kalkbrenner was by many considered to be the foremost pianist in...

 and piano with Frédéric Chopin

Frédéric Chopin

Frédéric François Chopin was a Polish composer and virtuoso pianist. He is considered one of the great masters of Romantic music and has been called "the poet of the piano"....

. He was the recipient of the Legion d'honneur

Légion d'honneur

The Legion of Honour, or in full the National Order of the Legion of Honour is a French order established by Napoleon Bonaparte, First Consul of the Consulat which succeeded to the First Republic, on 19 May 1802...

 (1872). After finishing his studies, he started teaching piano at the Conservatoire de Paris

Conservatoire de Paris

The Conservatoire de Paris is a college of music and dance founded in 1795, now situated in the avenue Jean Jaurès in the 19th arrondissement of Paris, France...

 (from 1862 to 1893). Among his notable students are Erik Satie

Erik Satie

Éric Alfred Leslie Satie was a French composer and pianist. Satie was a colourful figure in the early 20th century Parisian avant-garde...

, Isidor Philipp

Isidor Philipp

Isidor Philipp was a French pianist, composer, and distinguished pedagogue of Hungarian descent. He was born in Budapest and died in Paris.-Biography:...

, Paul Dukas

Paul Dukas

Paul Abraham Dukas was a French composer, critic, scholar and teacher. A studious man, of retiring personality, he was intensely self-critical, and he abandoned and destroyed many of his compositions...

, Raoul Pugno

Raoul Pugno

Stéphane Raoul Pugno was a French composer, teacher, organist, and pianist known for his playing of Mozart's works.Raoul Pugno was born in Paris. He made his debut at the age of six, and with the help of Prince Poniatowski he was then able to study at the École Niedermeyer. He then went to the...

, Alberto Williams

Alberto Williams

Alberto Williams was an Argentine symphonic composer and conductor.-Life and work:Alberto Williams was born to in Buenos Aires, in 1862. A maternal grandfather, Amancio Jacinto Alcorta, had been a respected government and banking policy-maker, as well as a well-known composer of sacred music...

, Teresa Carreño

Teresa Carreño

María Teresa Carreño García de Sena was a Venezuelan pianist, singer, composer, and conductor.Born into a musical family, she was at first taught by her father, then by Mathias, Louis Moreau Gottschalk and Anton Rubinstein and her talent was recognized at an early age...

, Ernest Schelling

Ernest Schelling

Ernest Henry Schelling was an American pianist, composer, and conductor.Born in Belvidere, New Jersey, Schelling was a child prodigy. His first teacher was his father. He entered the Academy of Music in Philadelphia at age 4. At age 7, Schelling traveled to Europe to study. He was admitted to the...

, Alfonso Rendano

Alfonso Rendano

Alfonso Rendano was an Italian pianist and composer. He is mostly renowned for inventing the "third pedal", which augmented the interpretative resources of the piano.Rendano was born in Cosenza...

, James Huneker

James Huneker

James Gibbons Huneker was an American music writer and critic.Huneker was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He studied piano in Europe under Leopold Doutreleau and audited the Paris piano class of Frédéric Chopin's pupil Georges Mathias. He came to New York City in 1885 and remained there...

, José Tragó, Camille Chevillard

Camille Chevillard

Camille Chevillard was a French composer and conductor.He was born in Paris, France. He led the Lamoureux Orchestra in the premieres of Debussy's Nocturnes and La mer . He was the son-in-law of conductor Charles Lamoureux...

, Camille Erlanger

Camille Erlanger

Camille Erlanger was a Parisian-born French opera composer. He studied at the Paris Conservatory under Léo Delibes and Émile Durand, and in 1888 won the Prix de Rome for his cantata Velléda...

 and Eugénie Satie-Barnetche. Mathias and another Chopin's student Karol Mikuli had an important impact on passing his style on the next generations of musicians. Besides teaching, he was also active as a concert pianist. On 14 March 1864, he was the principal pianist at the première of Rossini's Petite Messe Solennelle

Petite Messe Solennelle

Gioachino Rossini's Petite Messe Solennelle was written in 1863, "the last", the composer called it, "of my péchés de vieillesse" .....

.

Mathias died in Paris in 1910, at the age of 84.

His compositions include overtures to Hamlet and Mazeppa, five morceaux symphoniques for piano and strings, two piano concertos, six piano trios, a symphony, Œuvres choisies pour le piano, Études de genre, Études de style et de mécanisme, a collection of two and four-hand piano pieces, and transcriptions including the one of some scenes from Mozart's The Magic Flute

The Magic Flute

The Magic Flute is an opera in two acts composed in 1791 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to a German libretto by Emanuel Schikaneder. The work is in the form of a Singspiel, a popular form that included both singing and spoken dialogue....

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External links

• Information about Mathias in other sources