Life:
Napoléon Coste was born on the 27th of June 1805 in Amondans in the department of Doubs in eastern France, a date that was not established until 1982. He grew up in the neighbourhood of Ornans, to which he later dedicated several compositions. In 1813 he was in the Dutch town of Delfzijl with his father, a captain in the French army, he passed the Zuiderzee and crossed the river Rhine. The memory of these places returned in his compositions, the Souvenirs. He started his career as a guitarist in 1826 in Valenciennes, where he lived as a youth, began to compose, and played in a concert with the travelling virtuoso Sagrini. At the end of 1828 he settled in Paris, where he stayed for almost the rest of his artistic career. There, in the centre of important musical developments, he joined the circles of musicians who originated from Valenciennes, and also of famous guitarists, among whom Sor became of great importance to him, as he studied harmony and counterpoint with him and became his friend, joining him in concerts. His life in Paris is expressed in several programmatic compositions, after Berlioz’ invention of musical drama.
He developed his artistic talent, participated in mixed concerts, where he played his own compositions, most of which were published by well-known publishers or by himself, chez l’auteur. His performance and compositions were praised in the upcoming musical journals of the time, but the guitar as an instrument was generally disdained, in such a way that it eventually disappeared from the musical scene during his lifetime. When Coste came to Paris, the guitar was very popular and was played at a high level, as can be seen in the many guitar methods of the time. But the instrument became popular among amateurs mostly, causing more artistic compositions to become difficult to publish. Therefore, Coste composed and arranged much popular music for pedagogical and commercial purpose. As a guitar teacher he has many pupils and he made a revision of Sor’s method in 1851, one of the last methods published in Paris, known as the Méthode Coste-Sor. He entered upper class musical society upon joining the Société académique des Enfants d’Apollon in 1841 and the musical freemasons’ lodge Les Frères Unis Inséparables in 1843, where he gave concerts on his heptacorde, the seven-string guitar made for him by the luthier Lacôte. Many of his compositions were meant for this instrument. The recordings of this compact disc are performed by Carlo Fierens on an original heptacorde made by René Lacôte in 1855, which matches the very same heptacorde Coste designed. His fame reached international level and he was visited in Paris by admirers from Stockholm, Copenhagen, Riga, and St. Petersburg. In 1856 the Russian guitar-playing nobleman Makaroff opened a contest for guitar composition and construction in Brussels. Coste sent in five compositions, out of which his Grande Sérénade opus 30 won second prize, coming in after Mertz’s Concertino. He made no use of this laureate to travel through Europe as a guitar virtuoso, but returned to Paris, and also, to his own regret, to the job he had as an administrator at the municipality, from which he was pensioned in 1875. He had fewer pupils, had to publish his works by himself, and moreover injured his left shoulder twice, first in 1863, then again in 1874, but nevertheless he continued to perform in concerts.
His Éudes de Genre opus 38 were published by Richault c. 1872 and were dedicated to many of his pupils, among them Louise Olive Pauilhé, who he married in 1871, during the Prussian occupation of Paris. In his last years he still composed masterpieces as before, but also more didactic and easy pieces, which nevertheless are fine examples of his Romantic style. He died on 14 January 1883. His works were collected by admirers but disappeared from the concert repertoire. Only a few of his studies remained well known among guitarists, until Simon Wynberg publishes his complete works in 1981, opening up new attention for his oeuvre, that appears more and more in concert life since that time. This is becoming evident in the present series of recordings by Carlo Fierens.
Work
The music of Coste displays a wide spectrum of characteristics of the Romantic style. The theme and variation genre aside, Coste chooses to continue the composition with new musical ideas or varied repetition of these, which gives his works an episodic or rhapsodic character. Over time his compositions show more and more Romantic characteristics. There is a wave of periods with strong Romantic and light Romantic compositions. The latter have a more didactic or commercial purpose.
The importance of Romanticism in Coste’s music is reflected mostly in aspects of harmony, wherein complexity and intensity of texture are characteristic. His use of altered chords and dissonances can be related to that of Liszt, his harmonic progressions to those of Berlioz, his harmonic freedom to that of Chopin. His chromatic modulations, with or without common tone, are comparable to those of Schubert. In melody the figurations are most important, showing the aspect of virtuosity in his music. Without being an imitator, his texture can be related to the figuration and passages of Chopin, his practice of chromaticism with that of Schubert, his high level of playing technique to that of Liszt – all this connected to his great control of the instrument, with which he expands the limits of technical possibilities, based on the principles of Sor.
In musical expression, dynamics and articulation contribute to the emotion. Here external references can be made to the vocal portamento of Chopin and the arioso of Schubert. Few indications to exoticism are found, except perhaps influences from Spanish music that could be considered exotic. In the Romanticism of Coste story as well as folklore and the use of rests contribute to the narrative character of his music. Here, historicism plays a role in his programmatic works, which represent, just as with Berlioz, musical dramatics. For all these aspects, Coste can be placed at the centre of the musical developments appearing in Romantic music in Paris in the middle of the 19th century. True enough, in his own words, a modest composer for a modest instrument, in his masterpieces, Napoléon Coste has succeeded in elevating Romantic guitar music to a high level. Among the great three composers of Romantic guitar music, with Mertz and Zani de Ferranti, Coste can be considered as most important. Coste surpasses the other two in a musical way and knows how to express a multifaceted palette of Romantic elements in his music, which is further enhanced by his intensive harmonic writing. His work is versatile and varied, attractive to the listener, player, and analyst in both its broad lines and its details. From his early works on, which already show some boisterousness, a great development leading to his masterworks can be seen in the middle of the century, in which the Makaroff compositions play a major role. His approach towards virtuosity and complexity is of such a delicate and logical nature that his music attains a high technical level, never at the cost of performance. The musical expression, to which Coste gives his full attention, comes to maturity this way. In this study the Romanticism in his music becomes transparent, by way of analysis and defining criteria. These premises and results can be used as a starting point for research into the works of Zani and Mertz, to further demonstrate the importance of Coste for Romantic guitar music.
Dr. Ari van Vliet
Biographer of Napoléon Coste: Composer
and Guitarist in the Musical Life of 19th-century Paris
Livre d’Or du guitariste
This volume contains an opus number that stands alone in Coste’s output and is quite a peculiar feature in the contemporary guitar literature. His Livre d’Or du Guitariste, op. 52 is a collection of transcriptions from a wide variety of sources, that allows us to get a rare peak into Coste’s aesthetics, models, and taste. Due to its size (there are 38 pieces in the collection, although for unknown reasons two pieces are listed as 27a and 27b), it contains the vast majority of Coste’s transcriptions for solo guitar, and surely some of the most ambitious. It also is a late work of a mature guitarist, pedagogue, and composer, therefore its value is even greater. It was published, like many other works, “chez l’auteur” thanks to a subscription, probably in 1880, and it is dedicated to the Leipzig Guitar Club, a very active association by then, of which it is believed that Coste himself was honorary member (see see Ari van Vliet, ch. VIII). As mentioned above, none of the pieces in the book are composed by Coste, but I think this opus number can rightfully claim its rights to be in a recording of Coste’s works for guitar because of its historical value and its meaning in the scope of his artistic trajectory. It is also a good representation of the ‘spirit of the time’, in decades when the guitar was finding itself more and more secluded and embarrassed by the comparison with the great symphonic or soloistic repertoire of the romantic era. Despite transcription being a crucial practice in guitar literature, such an extensive ‘treatise’ on arranging for guitar is hardly found in any other guitar composer, and that means that Coste believed a lot in the artistic and pedagogical value of this practice.
It needs to be said that the didactic intention of this anthology is evident both in its dedication and in its structure, although some pieces require highly developed skills – a sort of progression in difficulty is noticeable as the pieces follow one another.
A continuity with Coste’s previous work can see in the choice of including a selection of pieces by Robert de Visée, therefore reconnecting with the seminal work contained in his edition of Sor’s Méthode, some decades before. Those early six transcriptions are also included in this recording. The source is always the Livre de Pièces pour la Guitarre, of which Coste owned a copy, reflecting an ongoing interest in this repertoire that gained attention of performers and musicologists in the frame of a growing movement towards ancient music (mainly thanks to the commitment of Fétis and his Concerts historiques).
Besides his ongoing interest in De Visée, the list of composers represented in the collection is revealing in itself. The glorious trinity of the classical period (Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven) is present, but with a choice of pieces that is sometimes surprising. Taking Beethoven as an example, we can find hugely transformed (and shortened) excerpts of famous sonata movements (for instance the “Pathetique” op. 10 no. 3), two movements of one of the most appreciated works by Beethoven contemporaries, the Septet Op. 20, but also two waltzes of the spurious collection Anh 14 of the Kinski/Halm catalogue. In fact, the piece that closes the collection, simply titled “Valse de Beethoven” (catalogued as no. 1 Ahn 14 and famous at the time as “le désir”), is an adaptation of “Trauerwalzer” (No.2) from 36 Originaltänze, D.365, by Franz Schubert. Similarly, some titles are just misleading: no. 27, Mio caro Adone, is credited to Mozart but is in fact a tune by Salieri (from his opera La fiera di Venezia, 1772), on which Mozart composed a little set of variations for piano. The national anthem “God save the Queen” (Victoria was the reigning monarch at the time of the publication) is daringly attributed to Handel. It’s interesting to notice that Coste’s mentor and master, Fernando Sor, has used the famous melody in one of his studies, op. 6 no. 10, and since then it had become a guitarists’ favorite: one could mention the set of variations by Sidney Pratten. However, a legitimate piece by Handel is included in the collection, a choir from the Oratorio Judas Maccabaeus (HWV 96).
Other gems adorn the collection, some of more predictable nature, some more surprising. Excerpts from stage works are represented with pieces by Gluck, Weber, and Donizetti. Popular music is included with two transcriptions of Swedish airs, possibly given to Coste by his friend and correspondent Schult (see again Ari van Vliet, ch. VIII). Coste’s interest in ancient music is evident in few other pieces, which might seem rather obscure to todays’ listeners: a simple song by Eustache Du Caurroy (spelled Ducaurroy), a “chanson d’Adam Billaut” that is an adaptation of Aussitôt que la lumière, and the famous Menuet (op.2 no.1) by André-Joseph Exaudet.
One further, little arrangement is included in this recording: the lovely Valse des Roses, a waltz composed by Olivier Métra (1830-1889), sometimes simply referred to as Les Roses. Métra has been one of the most famous composers of waltzes, polkas, mazurkas, and quadrilles in France at his time.
Overall, this collection is a bouquet of pieces that the old Napoléon Coste felt closer to his heart and valuable as a pedagogical tool. It is a good insight on the musical atmosphere of the times, through the lenses of a composer who was trying to expand the borders of his instrument.
Liner Notes © Carlo Fierens