Coste, Napoléon

Napoléon Coste was a major figure in guitar composition of the mid-nineteenth century. He belonged to the generation after Sor, and he created a new idiom for his instrument which is quite different from that of his predecessors and in many ways more advanced. He lived mostly in Paris.

Coste was born in the Département of the Doubs, France, where the beauty spot known as La Source du Lyson is situated.

TITLES IN TECLA:

A new Tecla publication October 2011: Schubert Lieder with their piano accompaniments arranged for guitar by Coste.

Napoleon Coste Composer, a small book about Coste. Available from Tecla in English as Napoleon Coste Composer or in French as Napoléon Coste Compositeur.

Napoléon Coste: La Source du Lyson, op. 47, for solo guitar.

Read the complete preface by Brian Jeffery to Coste’s La Source du Lyson. This is a major piece of research on Coste, giving many details about Coste, his background in the Doubs, the relation of this work to the Doubs, Coste and the painter Courbet, etc. It is recommended to anyone who is interested in this composer.