Louis Lacoste [De La Coste] [c. 1675–c. 1750] The two versions of his name are found in anthologies and on title-pages of his opera scores, but exemplars of the printed editions of
Télégone,
Orion and
Biblis at Toulouse bear the autograph signature ‘Lacoste’. He was a chorus member at the Opéra and is included in the register of musicians employed there in 1704 [see La Gorce]. He introduced himself in the preface to his ballet
Aricie [1697] as ‘a man who writes only songs’ [alluding to his airs sérieux et à boire published in the Ballard anthologies], not yet capable of more ambitious compositions. A document published by Campardon in 1701 reveals that he was involved in an adulterous affair with the wife of a watch maker who, on the indictment of her husband, was confined in a hospice. Lacoste is described in the document as a ‘musicien de l’opéra’.
Lacoste found fame with the success of his tragedy
Philomèle on 20 October 1705 [it was revived in 1709, 1723 and 1734], but this success was overshadowed two years later by the bruising failure of
Bradamante. A new tragedy,
Créuse l’Athénienne [April 1712] does not seem to have been well received, a failure confirmed by the absence of a revival. The following year Lacoste was named batteur de mesure [orchestral conductor] at the Opéra, and a year later maître de musique. In 1715 a new document published by Campardon shows him seeking to marry a singer at the Opéra, Madeleine Pasquier, ‘with her mother’s agreement’, but an argument with the singer’s father put an end to it. On 8 July 1717 he was dismissed from his post of maître de musique for some unknown reason and replaced by François Blouquier. Another document, dated 6 July 1720, is a ‘three-year concession for the exclusive privilege of staging operas in the town of Lille … to Louis De La Coste, merchant, and Marie Catherine Robert his wife residing in Lille’, but the title of merchant attributed to Lacoste makes the interpretation of this text uncertain. The title-page of the score of
Télégone [1725] reads ‘by M. Lacoste of the Académie Royale de Musique’, and the Mercure de France of March 1728 [in a review of
Orion] describes the composer as maître de chant at the same institution. He seems to have retained this position at least until the première of his last opera,
Biblis, in 1732. After that we lose all trace of Lacoste. Antoine de Léris, in his Dictionnaire portatif [Paris, 1754, but completed, according to the author, in 1749] spoke of him as a ‘musician who died some years ago’.
GrovePhilomèle, tragédie en musique [1705].
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