Napoléon Coste
Napoléon Coste's guitar music carries French Romantic drama and song: programmatic fantasies that send soldiers to war and bring them home in triumph, beside short romances and cantilènes of quiet, flowing melody.
Le Départ is deeply programmatic, inspired by the Siege of Sebastopol. Its first half holds the melancholy of leaving loved ones and the agitation of what lies ahead; the return opens in a marche triomphale and swells through grandiose gestures into a virtuosic coda. Beside that narrative sweep sit Consolazione and Les Regrets, tender romances without words, the brief Marche, and the mountain airs of Le Montagnard. His arrangement of Schubert's Ständchen keeps the same lyrical ease. The writing sits as naturally in flute or oboe and guitar chamber settings as on the solo instrument, full of pleasing harmonies and melodic warmth.
Compositions by Napoléon Coste appear on
Amatorios
Soprano Rebecca MacCallion joins Guitar Trek’s Bradley Kunda in a programme for voice and guitar. The pair made their ensemble debut on ABC Classic FM’s Sunday Live and took their work to audiences in Australia, Spain, Montenegro and Italy.
Romancing the Oboe
Oboist David Nuttall and guitarist Timothy Kain turn romantic miniatures into a warm chamber programme. Familiar favourites sit beside Brazilian sambas and Nielsen’s incidental music.
For Flute & Guitar
Virginia Taylor and Timothy Kain play French, Spanish and South American music for flute and guitar. Both were on the staff of the Canberra School of Music and had long performed together in chamber combinations.