Napoleon’s first wife Joséphine celebrated as music lover in concert series
Adam Sage
Joséphine Bonaparte, the long-suffering first wife of Napoleon, is often depicted as frivolous and a spendthrift. She was, in fact, a cultivated music lover w
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Joséphine Bonaparte, the long-suffering first wife of Napoleon, is often depicted as frivolous and a spendthrift. She was, in fact, a cultivated music lover whose influence helped to shape French tastes during the 19th century.

That, at least, is the opinion of admirers who hope to highlight her legacy in a series of concerts being laid on at the estate outside Paris that was the Bonapartes’ country residence.

Her favourite works will be played on instruments that date from the time of her glory between 1796, when she married Napoleon, and 1810, the year he divorced her for failing to provide him with an heir. Among them is an 1806 square piano of the sort used by Hortense de Beauharnais, Joséphine’s daughter from her first