Beginnings

As most biographies start out with a date of birth, in the specific case of Napoléon Coste there are several reasons for doing this. His right date of birth was not established until 1982, when Brian Jeffery published this discovery.^[1]Brian Jeffery: ‘Napoleon Costes Jugend’, in: Gitarre und Laute, Köln, vol. IV, 1982, no. 5, p. 254-256. Until then there was a great deal of confusion about this date, which still persist to this day.^[2]Pascal Proust: ‘Napoléon Coste, Le Romantique’, in: Guitare Classique, no. 74, IX-XI 2016, p. 24-25 [all mistakes repeated].

The origin of these mistaken dates may be attributible to confusion surrounding the Revolutionary calendar, as Coste’s birth certificate says he was born in the 13th year of the Revolution, on the eighth of the month of Messidor.^[3]Besançon, Archives départementales, acte de naissance Napoléon Coste, État Civil, Amondans, N, 1793-1872, 5 Mi 177. and considering that this Revolutionary calendar named 22 September 1792 as the first day of the first year of the Revolution, conversion to the Gregorian calendar might seem to be quite straightforward, but can easily lead to errors.

But the second reason for the mistaken date can be found in Coste’s induction into Freemason’s Lodge Les Frères Unis Inséparables in 1843, where he himself indicated his date of birth to be June 28, 1806.^[4]http://www.mvmm.org/m/docs/coste.html. Why he did this, remains a mystery.

Nevertheless, his death certificate in 1883 lists his correct age of 78 years, making his year of birth 1805.^[5]Paris, Archives de Paris, Acte de déces Napoléon Coste, 15 I 1883, Série V2E 5Mi 3/1256. A similar situation surrounds the seven different dates on which Coste ostensibly died. Here are the correct dates:

Napoléon Coste, 27 June 1805 – 14 January 1883

Life and Music

What makes the biography of a composer interesting for guitarists is the connection it shows between his life and his music. This is even more so in the Romantic era, where the most important sources of inspiration came from nature, cities, history, sentiments, death and folklore, being memories to these features effected in the so-called programme music.

Nature	Cities	History	Sentiments	Death	Folk
Flandres op. 5	Delfzil op. 19	Tournoi op. 15	Regrets op. 25	Marche funèbre op. 43	Ronde Mai op. 42
Vallée Ornans op. 17	Cloches op. 21	Chasse Sylphes op. 29	Consolazione op. 36		Villageoise op. 47
Bords du Rhin op. 18	Meulan op. 22	Le Départ op. 31	Divagation op. 45
Zuyderzée op. 20	Auteuil op. 23	Choeur de Pélerins op. 30
Passage Alpes op. 27, 28, 40
Montagnard op. 34a
Feuilles Automne op. 41
Jura op. 44
Source Lyson op. 47

How this is worked-out in Coste’s music can be found in his biography, where one could look for any references to them in the analysis of his works for guitar solo.

In 1852 Coste published a composition named Le Zuyderzée as one of of his seven part collection Souvenirs.^[6]Ari van Vliet: Napoléon Coste: Composer and Guitarist in the Musical Life of 19th-century Paris, Zwolle, Stichting Cumuli, 2015, Biography, p. 122-127. In this piece, one can hear the treacherous waves of this inland sea in Holland with storm, lightning and thunder. But why would this sea be so far away from France, unless it were a real memory of the composer? And if that is the case, he must have visited the Netherlands.

The story behind this question started to reveil itself from the archives of the French army, located in the Château de Vincennes in Paris. These archives contain a file on Coste’s father, who served in the army in the Napoleonic era. And it was in this file that a report was found concerning the evacuation in 1813 of the island of Langeoog in the East-Eems, located in the very north-western region of Germany. At that time Holland was occupied by the French, or at least that is the way the Dutch view the situation. Captain Jean-François Coste, Napoléon Coste’s father, was responsible for the defense of the island. When the English allies attacked the island of Langeoog in March 1813, he and the five soldiers left from his regiment, were on guard.^[7]Dossier J.F.Coste, Château de Vincennes, 24 815 [Item 28], p. 2, 3.

The report reads:

We are now at the number of five soldiers, including my son of eight years only, who has armed himself with a good saddle-pistol, and keeps \ a very good / guard… during the day as well as at night watching the enemy from close.

Since this report comes from Coste’s father, and given that his only son, born in 1805, is almost 8 years at the time, this must be Napoléon Coste, visiting Holland in company of the French army. So he was in Holland! After the evacuation of Langeoog he and his father stayed in the fortress of Delfzijl and Coste’s Souvenirs opus 19 Delfzil – Souvenirs de l’embouchure de l’Ems bears the town’s name as a title.

A picture by Streun tells us that on May 23, 1813 the French leave Delfzijl after emperor Napoléon Bonaparte’s first defeat, and that they passed the Zuyderzee as they retreated from Holland.

So there really is a connection between Napoléon Coste and Holland. The Zuyderzee example shows the importance of historical musicological research.

And there are more connections like these to be found. As a child, Coste lived in the town of Ornans, in the Franche-Comté in eastern France.^[8]Ari van Vliet: Napoléon Coste: Composer and Guitarist in the Musical Life of 19th-century Paris, Zwolle, Stichting Cumuli, 2015, Biography, p. 10-11.

Later, also in 1852, he opens his collection of Souvenirs with La Vallée d’Ornans opus 17, His compatriot and contemporary Gustave Courbet, well known for his invention of Realism in painting, depicted the region in an engraving, representing an excellent image of the music as well.

Coste embarks on his career as a guitarist in 1826 in Valenciennes, in northern-France, where he lived as a youth after his father settled there in 1815, following Waterloo.^[9]Ari van Vliet: Napoléon Coste: Composer and Guitarist in the Musical Life of 19th-century Paris, Zwolle, Stichting Cumuli, 2015, Biography, p. 15-21. In 1835 he composes his Souvenirs de Flandres opus 5 and in 1852 Les Cloches opus 21 as memories of his stay in this region. In this small town he participates in what are called mixed concerts, in which several artists, professional whether or not, perform, either in an ensemble or as a soloist. Coste plays his own work, the Weigl variations opus 2, for a small audience.

When the guitarist Sagrini visits the city, Coste seizes the opportunity to play with him in a concert on 27 February 1828, performing their own works and a duet by Giuliani, opus 30.^[10]Petites Affiches, Valenciennes: 7 Année, 1 III 1828 no. 654, p. 70. Coste probably played his Weigl variations opus 2, an example of the theme-and-variation genre on an opera theme, in this case from Die Schweizerfamilie. Coste just wrote five pieces in this disappearing genre, the last one in 1841. Then the genre gradually had developed into the freer genre of the fantasy.

Paris

Coste does not follow Sagrini’s example by becoming a travelling virtuoso. He opts instead to settle in Paris at the end of 1828, where he stays for almost his whole artistic career. He participates in his first known concert in the Gymnase musical in Paris on 27 March 1829, in which he plays an own work, which must be his opus 2, which is positive reviewed in the press.^[11]L’Observateur des beaux-arts, vol. I, 29 III 1829, p. 419. In this period Paris is becoming the musical capital of Europe, the place where new developments arise, the cradle of Romantic music by Chopin, Liszt and Berlioz.

In Paris Coste joins the resident guitarists of the Classical generation who are working there, such as Carulli, Carcassi, Aguado and above all Sor, with whom he gives concerts and becomes friends. He probably studies counterpoint and harmony with him. Later he edits Sor’s guitar method and publishes several of Sor’s duets in arrangements for two equal guitar parts.

Sor gives his last concert in Coste’s company on 22 April 1838. Coste plays his Fantaisie Norma opus 16 and his performance is characterised as being of an excellent style, pure, gracious and crisp.^[12]Revue et Gazette musicale de Paris, vol. V, no. 18, 6 V 1838, Nouvelles, p. 190. His compositions are considered as being original, showing yet unknown resources of the guitar. He receives this sort of favourable reception over the entire course of his career, but the guitar as an instrument does not enjoy the same fortune.

What is the position of the guitar in social-cultural life? The instrument is very popular for playing at home, for accompanying chansons and opera selections. In spite of the falling price of the piano, that instrument remains expensive, far more than the inexpensive guitar. But guitar music of high artistic standard like that of Coste can be heard less and less on the stages. And while guitarists are generally praised, their instrument of choice is held in disdain by the critics. The guitar is considered to be inferior, only suitable for the easy accompaniment of serenades by dilettants, amateurs. In several reviews the guitar is called a waste of time for a musical talent.^[13]La France musicale, vol. I,; no. 19, 15 IV 1838, p. 5.

An additional factor contributing to the guitar’s disappearance from the artistic classes is the literary image of the instrument that emerges from short stories in newspapers and its image in opera. In 1834, for instance, Le Ménestrel publishes the story of a monkey in Ceylon who learns to play the guitar. These Romantic images illustrate the stigma of the guitar as something not worthy to be taken seriously, as an ornament, a stage prop.

But perhaps the situation is not quite as bad as it may seem. There are more positive reviews than negative ones, so one should question wether this really could have had such a negative influence on the status of the guitar in musical life in Paris. Coste himself writes that he once had to defend the guitar against Halévy, who said to him that he was angry that people were so devoted to such an unfaithful instrument that does not return any result the great effort invested in it. Coste explained romantically that he saw the guitar as a sick child he is attached to due to its charming imperfection through which it speaks to the soul.^[14]Coste-Schult, 7 X 1867. In spite of his criticism, in 1841 Halevy himself wrote an opera titled Le Guitarrero with an overture based on the tuning of the guitar. But this is an example of the increasing popular Hispanicism.^[15]Ari van Vliet: Napoléon Coste: Composer and Guitarist in the Musical Life of 19th-century Paris, Zwolle, Stichting Cumuli, 2015, Biography, p. 96-98. Courbet made a painting upon this subject in 1844.

Finally, the supremacy of the piano has been mentioned as the cause of the decline of the guitar in this period. But there is more to say upon this subject, other influencing factors were the negative press, the guitar’s popularity among the lower classes, the literary Romantic image of the instrument and Hispanicism. And the instrument’s soft sounds could not compete amid the demand for louder instruments. Here is what Coste himself had to say about this in his letter to Schult on 20 July 1876.

I do not deny that the piano is a tremendously powerful instrument on which some admirable music is played. The power pianists have is mighty. They play thousands of notes at a dizzying speed. […] It’s a horrible epidemic. In every house you hear this atrocious instrument being clanked on from the basement to the attic. In the building we live in there are only three of them, and we are quite fortunate that they are seldom played, but one hears a lot of them in the distance in the neighbourhood.^[16]Coste-Schult, 20VII 1876.

The guitar does not enjoy a high status as can be seen by the fact that the instrument is not included in the orchestra and that it is not taught at the conservatoire. Methods for it are not authorized, unlike those for the violin by Baillot, Kreutzer and Rode, and those for the piano by Adam, Czerny and Burgmuller. As a result, many guitarists have published a guitar method of their own. As many as 68 methods appeared between 1820 and 1830, including those of Sor, Aguado, Carulli and Carcassi. This overabundance comes to an end in 1840, after which the only new method to be published was Coste’s revised version of Sor’s method in 1851.^[17]Erik Stenstadvold: An Annotated Bibliography of Guitar Methods, 1760-1860, Organologia: Musical Instruments and Performance Practice no. 4, London, Pendragon Press, 2010, p. xi-xiv, 3-6.

In addition to this, the flourishing tradition of benefit concerts in the salons and the salles that started around 1830 comes to an end at around 1848, and the guitar plays an ever-diminishing role in these concerts. The guitar is vanishing from the concert stage. After Sor’s death in 1839 Napoléon Coste seems to be the only resident guitarist and composer of high artistic standard to manifest himself in publications and concerts in Paris.

From 1829 on, Coste performs in the so-called mixed concerts, where he meets many musicians, among whom important musicians from the conservatoire. He succeeds in widening his musical circles to famous composers, and he becomes a member of the musical Société académique des Enfants d’Apollon, where he plays his Le Tournoi opus 15 in an annual concert in 1843 in the Salle du Conservatoire.^[18]Maurice Decourcelle: La Société académique des Enfants d’Apollon, programmes des concerts annuels…, Paris, Durand, 1881, p. 157.

The story of Walter Scott’s novel Ivanhoe from 1819, is expressed in music, with trumpet sounds, galloping horses etcetera.

Coste also becomes the secretary of the musical Freemasons lodge Les Frères Unis Inséparables and plays in one of its concerts in 1852. Being a guitarist and a composer, he succeeds in gaining stature in the upper-class musical circles of Paris.^[19]Revue et Gazette musicale de Paris, vol. XIX, no. 8, 22 II 1852, p. 58-59.

Brussels

In Russia the guitar is still played by the rich nobility. One such Russian nobleman is Nicolai de Makaroff from St-Petersburg, who travels through Europe with his guitar and visits Napoléon Coste in
Paris in 1851.^[20]Ari van Vliet: Napoléon Coste: Composer and Guitarist in the Musical Life of 19th-century Paris, Zwolle, Stichting Cumuli, 2015, Biography, p. 120-121. He organises a guitar competition in 1856.^[21]Matanya Ophee: ‘The Memoirs of Makarov’, in: Essays on Guitar History, Columbus, Orphée, 2016, p. 115-116. He does this in Brussels rather than in Paris due to the Crimean war, which had just ended with the Russians defeat by the hands of the French.^[22]Nikolai Petrovich de Makaroff: ‘The memoirs of Makaroff’, in: The Guitar Review, New York, The Society of the Classic Guitar, 1946-48, (vol. I reprint 1974/1975) no. 1, p. 10-12, no. 2, p. 32-34, … Continue reading Coste enters five compositions, including his Grande Sérénade opus 30, which takes second prize to Mertz’s Concertino. But Mertz died in Vienna while the contest still is in progress, and as a result Coste is the only surviving winner, a fact that is stated clearly in the edition of the work.

The jury was composed of well-known musicians from Brussels, including Servais, Léonard, Kufferath, Damcke and Blaes.^[23]L’Observateur Belge, 21e année, no. 301, 28 X 1856, p. 3. The works Coste entered in the contest have many Romantic references, of a programmatic narrative character. Les Feuilles d’Automne opus 27, 28 was later renamed as Le Passage des Alpes, referring to Napoleon Bonaparte’s journey to Italy over the Alps in 1800. This is an example of how extra-musical meaning of programme music can change, while the music remains the same.

La Chasse des Sylphes opus 29 has literary references to Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Here the singing fairies can be found, as well as the hunt with the horns and the braying of the donkey.

Paris Again

Coste makes no use of his new status as winner of the Makaroff contest to travel through Europe as a guitar virtuoso. Instead, he returns to Paris, and also, to his own regret, to the job he holds as an administrator at the municipality, from which he retires in 1875.^[24]Coste-Degen, 15 VI 1858. He is not a traveller, as he writes. From this moment on, troubles begin. He no longer has many pupils, he has to publish works by himself, there are fewer and fewer concerts. Moreover he suffers two separate injuries to his left shoulder, the first one in 1863, another in 1874.^[25]Coste-Degen, 17 X 1863; Coste-Schult, 8 XII 1874. nevertheless, he continues to perform in some concerts, but now only in the monthly meetings of the Société académique des Enfants d’Apollon, at least nine times between 1841 and 1879.^[26]Maurice Decourcelle: La Société académique des Enfants d’Apollon, programmes des concerts annuels…, Paris, Durand, 1881, p. 157, 178, 183, 184, 188, 197, 226, 231, 236, 240.

He composes études for his pupils and publishes this famous collection as Études de Genre opus 38 with Richault around 1872.^[27]Anik Devriès & François Lesure: Dictionnaire des éditeurs de musique français, Genève, Minkoff, 1979-1988, vol. II, p. 369; Coste-Schult, 2 IX 1874. These pieces are dedicated to many of his pupils, among them Louise Olive Pauilhé since 1840, who he remarkably does not marry before 1871, during the Prussian occupation of Paris.^[28]Paris, Archives de Paris, Acte de mariage Napoléon Coste & Louise Olive Pauilhé, 11 II 1871, Série V2E 5Mi 3/210. Among didactic and easy pieces, which nevertheless are fine examples of his Romantic style, he still composes masterpieces as before.^[29]Ari van Vliet: Napoléon Coste: Composer and Guitarist in the Musical Life of 19th-century Paris, Zwolle, Stichting Cumuli, 2015, Biography, p. 190; Thematic Catalogue, p. 107-109. Among these La Source du Lyson opus 47 can be found, which was named Fête Villageoise in an earlier stage, but changed in memory of his travels to the Jura in 1875, another example of changing references.^[30]Coste-Hallberg, 9 I 1879.

In his last years Coste gradually he retires from the cultural life. Moreover, the extreme cold in January 1881 injured his fingers severely. Nevertheless, he continues to perform in public, until 1882, when he suffers what was called a cerebral congestion.^[31]Coste-Hallberg, 27 II 1881, 8 XI 1881. He dies on January, 14 1883.^[32]Paris, Archives de Paris, Acte de déces Napoléon Coste, 15 I 1883, Série V2E 5Mi 3/1256. His works are collected by admirers but they disappear from the concert repertoire. Only a few of his studies remain well known among guitarists until Simon Wynberg publishes his complete works in 1981, opening up new attention for his oeuvre, which appears more and more in concert life from that time on.^[33]Napoléon Coste, in: Wynberg, Simon: The Guitar Works of Napoléon Coste, facsimile edition, vol. I-IX, Monaco, Chanterelle, 1981, 1983; reprint 2006-7.

Romanticism

In 1852, writing compositions referring to personal memories has already been in fashion for years. Romantic topics include nature, death as a mystery, history, cities and folklore among other. The Romantic concept originates in German philosophy from around the end of the 18th century and it spreads through Europe in literature, art and music.^[34]Ari van Vliet: Napoléon Coste: Composer and Guitarist in the Musical Life of 19th-century Paris, Zwolle, Stichting Cumuli, 2015, Biography, p. xv-xx. One example of a prevalent theme in the Romantic era is dazzling heights, which can be seen in the symbolism of amazing mountains, a source of inspiration for painters like Courbet in his painting of the Alps. Coste also refers to mountains several times, such as in Le Passage des Alpes opus 27, 28 & 40 from 1856.

Romanticism in music is not just the presence of one or some formal characteristics and style elements, but always a constellation of these of these phenomena, making a piece more Romantic in degree. Analysis is a very interesting and also aesthetic way of understanding the works of this great Romantic composer and guitarist, which leads to a successful interpretation in performance. Among the great Romantic guitar composers Mertz and Zani de Ferranti, Coste is outstanding for the quality of his work.

The first part of this article is a very brief distillation of the conclusion of the biography, thematic catalogue and compact disc of Napoléon Coste’s life and work, that was published as a PhD dissertation in 2015. The second part is a short explanation of Coste’s Romantic style through musical examples from Fantaisie symphonique opus 28[b] and Le Passage des Alpes opus 27, 28 & 40. Many new findings and details can be found in these books and CD, which is recommended for further reading.

This article is based on the research in life and works of Coste, as published in: Napoléon Coste: Composer and Guitarist in the Musical Life of 19th-century Paris Biography, Thematic Catalogue &Compact Disc, translation and elaboration of the PhD dissertation at Utrecht University in The Netherlands. Edition: Zwolle, Cumuli Foundation, 2015 www.cumuli.nl

The biography is published in digital and paper edition as: Napoléon Coste: Composer and Guitarist in the Musical Life of 19th-Century Paris by Digital Guitar Archive (DGA-203) in 2018.

Part II – Work

The musical examples in this article are orginal recordings by Ari van Vliet, playing a Kresse copy 2010 of Coste’s own Lacote heptacorde 1856, with Dlugolecki gut strings tuned at a’=435Hz.