Napoléon COSTE

Born in Amondans in the Doubs, the son of an officer in the Imperial Army (which explains his first name), Coste began learning the guitar with his mother. He settled in Paris in 1830 and studied with Fernando Sor, whose friend he later became. In 1838, after a duo concert by the two guitarists, the Revue et Gazette musicale observed that ‘M. Coste follows worthily in the footsteps of the renowned guitarists. His distinguishing feature is an excellent style, pure, graceful and vigorous . . . He has a great deal in common with Sor: he resembles him as both executant and composer’. The works he wrote for his instrument reveal the influence of his teacher, but deviate from it in their more Romantic harmony and spirit. In addition to dances, fantasias on operatic themes, original fantasias such as Le Tournoi (subtitled ‘fantaisie chevaleresque’) and Le Départ(‘fantaisie dramatique’), evocations of the Doubs region (Souvenir du Jura, La Source du Lyson, La Vallée d’Ornans) and didactic works (Le Livre d’or du guitariste and a revised and expanded reprint of Sor’s tutor), Coste wrote pieces for oboe and guitar (or piano), a few songs, and arrangements of lieder by Beethoven and Schubert for voice and guitar. He particularly enjoyed playing the seven-string guitar: the additional low string is strung ‘free of the neck’ and tuned to C, D or E flat according to the key of the piece. He was the first guitarist to transcribe for the modern instrument Baroque pieces notated in tablature.