The dissertation Napoléon Coste: composer and guitarist in the musical life of 19th-century Paris by Ari van Vliet concerns a study in life and works of Napoléon Coste (1805-1883).
Born in 1805 as the son of an officer in the Napoleonic army, Coste went to Delfzijl, Holland with his father as a child of 8. In 1813 the French withdrew from this fortress, passing the Zuiderzee and the Rhine. Later, he would dedicate his Souvenirs to these places. He grew up in Valenciennes, where he already developed musical activities. In December 1828 he settled in Paris and made his career, giving concerts, lessons and composing. He studied harmony and counterpoint with Sor. As a member of the Société académique des Enfants d'Apollon he played in its concerts, most notably in 1843 with his Le Tournoi in the Salle du Conservatoire. He also became a member of the Freemasons lodge and participated in a concert in 1852. He entered his most important works in the Makaroff guitar competition in Brussels in 1856, where he took second prize with Grande Sérénade.
Back in Paris he continued his activities but had to take an administrative job in order to support himself. He married his pupil Louise Olive Pauilhé in 1871, after the German invasion. He injured his left shoulder in 1873, just as he had in 1863. Nevertheless he continued to give concerts up to 1880, when he could no longer play due to the extreme cold that winter. A year later he was struck by a 'cerebral congesture'. He died on 14 January 1883 and was buried at the Cimetière de Montmartre. Until the millennium only the Études opus 38 remained in the guitarists repertoire. Currently however, most of his works are regularly performed in concert.
Coste’s music displays a wide spectrum of characteristics of the Romantic style. He composes by continuing the music with new ideas or varied repetition of these, which gives his works an episodic character. The Romanticism in Coste=s music is reflected mostly in harmony, wherein complexity and intensity are characteristic. His use of altered chords and dissonants can be related to that of Liszt, his harmonic progressions to those of Berlioz, his harmonic freedom to that of Chopin. His modulations are comparable to those of Schubert. In this he follows the general development, but he gives his music a personal mark, 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 his music narrative as well as folklore contribute to the character. Here historicism plays a role in his programmatic works, which represent musical dramatics in an original and innovative way. For all these aspects, Coste can be placed at the centre of the musical developments appearing in Romantic music in Paris. From his early works on 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 dataset contains the recording of the most important compositions of Napoléon Coste, his Souvenirs opus 17-23, Fantaisie symphonique opus 28[b] (first recording) and Le Passage des Alpes opus 27, 28 & 40, played by guitarist Ari van Vliet on a Kresse copy of the Lacôte heptacorde guitar Coste himself used. Historical details of all these works are described in the biography, provided with a descriptive analysis and can be found in the Thematic Catalogue which is the second part of the dissertation, wherein the romantic style of this guitar music is clarified in a taxonomy of formal features and style elements. Musical performance practice is followed by musical theory which results in revealing the music to the auditor in a comprehensive way.
