NAPOLEON COSTE

Life and Works. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

Contents

Technical and Style Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

Notes on the Pieces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

A Note from the Publisher. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

Divertissement sur Lucia di Lammermoor, Op. 9. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

Rondeau de Concert, Op. 12. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

Le Départ: Fantasie dramatique, Op. 31. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

Les Soirées d’Auteuil, Op. 23. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

Deuxième Polonaise, Op. 14 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

Fantaisie sur deux motifs de La Norma, Op. 16. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

La Cachucha, Op. 13 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46

Les Cloches, Op. 21. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50

Andante et Menuet, Op. 39. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55

Souvenir de Jura: Andante et Polonaise, Op. 44. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60

La Source du Lyson: Fantaisie, Op. 47 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66

2
Selected Concert Works for Guitar
Edited by Jeffrey McFadden

The guitar works of Napoléon Coste (1805–1883) can be Dionisio Aguado, and Fernando Carulli, were still active in
heard with increasing frequency on the concert stage. His the city. His strongest influence was Sor, with whom Coste
works were reprinted in the 1980s and, with the recent studied not just guitar but also harmony and counterpoint.
availability of digitized archives, the works of this brilliant Sor was his mentor, and later, his duo partner (Sor’s last
French guitarist are now widely available in period editions. published guitar music was for guitar duo and dedicated
to Coste). Coste came to be an admired and acclaimed
Some of Coste’s best-loved concert works have been performer and teacher, and an esteemed member of the
included in this edition, which provides an opportunity to extraordinary Parisian guitar firmament. His first works
correct errors found in the originals, and to update/translate appeared around 1830, just as the guitar’s fortunes were
the composer’s markings. But this edition also offers the beginning to decline. He remained in Paris and continued
chance to look between the lines, reconsider exactly what publishing guitar music over the next 40-plus years, initially
the composer intended, and make these intentions explicit with important publishing houses. Later, because of a
for today’s performer. Coste was a great melodist with full diminished market, he would be forced to self-publish.
command of the enriched harmonic palate of the mid-to-
late 19th century, and, perhaps most importantly, he had a In 1856, at the height of his creative life, Coste took part in
powerful guitaristic intuition and a deep understanding of a competition for new guitar works organized in Brussels
the guitar fretboard, which he used with great creativity in by the Russian nobleman and guitarist Nikolai Makaroff.
crafting his concert music. 64 pieces were submitted by 31 different composers at the
competition. The first prize was awarded posthumously to
This performance edition of Coste’s important works aims Johann Kaspar Mertz, who had died in the period between
to provide the modern guitarist with fully-fingered, easy-to- the submission deadline and the announcement of the prize
read, corrected score, uncovering the composer’s fretboard winners. Mertz received four votes. Coste submitted his
logic. By doing so, we learn not just how charming these Opp. 27–31 (Op. 31 was apparently submitted after the
pieces are for audiences, but how fun they are to play for the deadline and was refused adjudication), and he was awarded
accomplished guitarist! second prize with three votes. Despite not winning the
competition, the prize brought considerable lustre to Coste’s
Napoléon Coste published career, and his publishers did not hesitate to mention this
his last works for guitar in success in the front matter of his printed works.
Life and Works the early 1880s. By this time,
the guitar had shifted to In the early 1860s Coste suffered injuries to his arms or
the domain of the hobbyist shoulders. It has been suggested that he broke his right arm
musician. A decline in esteem falling down a flight of stairs. He writes in a letter only that it
for the instrument had been was a “disastrous accident” that had befallen him. In any case,
underway since the middle his injuries were severe enough that he was forced to retire as
of the 19th century, brought an active recitalist. He continued to teach in Paris and publish
about by the predominance guitar music until his death at 77 on February 17, 1883.
of orchestral, operatic, and
piano music, combined with public expectations and tastes. The 11 pieces included here can be considered among
Coste had come to Paris as a young man in the 1830s and Napoléon Coste’s masterworks. They span a 40-year period,
was integrated into a thriving guitar culture—so thriving that roughly 1840 to 1880, comprising Coste’s peak artistic life,
it was, and still is, referred to as the “guitar mania.” But he and encompassing both his early and mature styles. Following
was, in fact, in the wrong place and time. Coste reached his is a chronological listing with publication information:
artistic apogee at a time when the guitar was much derided
by critics and disappearing from public consciousness. As • Divertissement sur Lucia di Lammermoor, Op. 9
a consequence, Coste’s works, including some of the finest (1839) Paris, Bernard Latte, later reprinted by L. Mayaud et Cie.
guitar music of the 19th century, were consigned to obscurity
after his death. It wasn’t until a full 100 years later, when • Rondeau de Concert, Op. 12 (Probably 1840)
his complete works were issued by editor Simon Wynberg, Richault, Messonier, and chez l’auteur.
that Coste would take his rightful place among the greatest
guitarists/composers of his era. Today, his music is at the core • La Cachucha, Op. 13 (1839/40) Paris, Richault.
of the guitar’s standard repertoire.
• Deuxième Polonaise, Op. 14 – Appears in a
Claude Antoine Jean Georges Napoléon Coste was born on manuscript from the 1850s but was probably written in
June 27, 1805 in Amondons in eastern France. His father the early 1840s. It also appears in another manuscript
was a captain in the French military and a loyal follower of as Op. 29, but La Chasse des Sylphes as published by E.
Napoléon Bonaparte, thus naming his son after the Emperor. Girod is the true Op. 29 (and was one of the submitted
Coste began studying the guitar at an early age under the pieces in the Makaroff competition).
tutelage of his mother. By his teen years, his family had
moved to Valenciennes at the northern perimeter of France • Fantaisie sur deux motifs de La Norma, Op. 16
and here Coste established a reputation as a talented young (1843) E. Challiot. Existed in some form as early
performer and teacher. In 1830, he moved to Paris. There as 1838.
he soon became acquainted with the great guitarists of the
day, many of whom, namely Fernando Sor, Matteo Carcassi,

3
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