Release Date: 08 January 2000
Label: Naxos / Naxos Classics
Packaging Type: Jewel Case
No of Units: 1
Barcode: 636943435427
Genres: Classical
Composer/Series: COSTE
Description
Napoleon Coste(1805-1883) Guitar Works, Op. 38Napoleon Caste was France's greatest guitar composer and, together withMertz, the guitar composer most representative of the Romantic style. He wasborn in the village of Amondans in the picturesque Loue river valley,immortalized by the painter Gustave Courbet. Caste's father, the village mayorand a former infantry captain, patriotically named his son after the newEmperor (1805 was the year of Ulm and Austerlitz, but also of Trafalgar) andgroomed him for a military career. From age six, young Napoleon also began toplay guitar, taking his first lessons from his mother. At the age of elevenCaste suffered an extended and serious illness, and the family seems to haveabandoned any plans for his military career. The youthful Caste, living inValenciennes, gained local fame as a performer and teacher of the guitar, andin 1828 even played duets with the visiting Italian virtuoso Luigi Sagrini(they performed Giuliani's Op. 130). In 1830, the year of the July Revolution,Caste moved to Paris to pursue his career. The French capital was not only oneof the great cultural centers of the world but also, since the 1820s, home to aguitaromanie, a rage for the guitar, which was attracting performersfrom throughout western Europe, especially the Italian states and Spain.Caste, who apparently had little formal training in music, studiedtheory and composition in Paris and also became the friend and pupil ofFernando Sor (1778-1839), the esteemed Spanish composer and guitarist. One ofCaste's concerts in 1838 opened with a duet featuring Sor in his lastdocumented public appearance. The piece they performed may well have been Sor'sSouvenir de Russie, op. 63, which was the last piece Sor published inhis lifetime and his last numbered work; it was dedicated '?á son ami, N Caste.'Simon Wynberg, in his edition of Caste's works, also cites an extant copy ofSor's Divertissement, op. 62 (1838) which carries a similar, handwrittendedication. Whichever piece they performed, this friendship between the Spanishmaestro and the brilliant young Frenchman would prove historically importantfor both men, for Caste derived considerable prestige from his reputation asSor's last and greatest pupil; in return, Caste made several significantcontributions to Sor's legacy.Caste's own compositions began to appear in print in the 1840s, and inabout 1851 he also published a Complete Method for Guitar by Fernando Sor. Thiswork, in spite of its title, was in fact anew method for the guitar by Castehimself, based on the technical principles he had learned from Sor, andaugmented with a number of Sor's studies as well as a few original pieces byCaste. It is not to be confused with Sor's own Method of over a decadeearlier, which was not really a 'method' at all in the traditional sense butinstead a remarkable discussion of guitar technique, primarily descriptive,with few musical examples. Thus, Caste's work filled a void, since it provideda pedagogical system
Tracklisting
Dariia Lytvishko
Baltimore Symphony Orchestra; Marin Alsop
Alice Di Piazza; Basel Sinfonietta; NDR Bigband; Titus Engel
Anna Alas i Jove; Miquel Villalba
David Childs; Black Dyke Band; Nicholas Childs
Various
Various
Lully
