Daniel-François-Esprit Auber (1782-1871)
Overtures • 9
Le Domino noir, opéra comique in three acts AWV 30 (1837) – overture
La Gitana, ballet in prologue and three acts(1838) – excerpts*
La Sirène, opéra comique in three acts AWV 37 (1844) – overture
Gustave III, ou le bal masque, opera historique in five acts AWV 23 (1833) – excerpts
Marche funèbre pour la translation des Cendres de Napoléon, AWV 191 (1840)*
Janáček Philharmonic Ostrava / Dario Salvi
rec. 2025, Kino Vesmír, Ostrava, Czech Republic
*world premiere recording
Naxos 8.574723 [75]
Many of us may recall the 1960s as a time when there was still a market for recorded collections of popular overtures and those short orchestral pieces that Beecham famously described as “lollipops”. Auber’s overtures to La muette de Portici, Fra Diavolo, Le cheval de bronze, Le domino noir and Les diamants de la couronne, for instance, were staple tracks on commercially successful LPs from such conductors as Decca’s Albert Woolf and Mercury’s Paul Paray.
The producers of those recordings were well aware of the demands of the contemporary classical pops market. Understandably keen to produce crowd-pleasing material, they more often than not encouraged conductors to deliver high-powered, primary-coloured accounts that took full advantage of the resources of the late-19th century Romantic symphony orchestra. That such an approach, when applied to music composed in an earlier period, came somewhat at the expense of stylistic authenticity seemed to bother neither the record-buying public nor, it appears, most musicians of the time.
Two parallel developments over the past 50 or 60 years have, however, changed matters significantly. In the first place, the classical music world has become more introverted and more specialised; the middlebrow market has virtually disappeared to the point where its musical tastes are no longer catered for by the vast majority of new releases. As a result, Auber’s music is heard less frequently these days. One expert commentator concluded sadly that “[h]is stylish and restrained art is now of little interest to the world of music” (Robert Ignatius Letellier, Leading themes in the operas of Daniel-François-Esprit Auber, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, 2024, p.1). Secondly, listeners have become increasingly familiar with the concept and practice of Historically Informed Performance. So, whenever an Auber score is performed, it is far less likely to be presented in big-band late-19th-century fashion than in a somewhat scaled-back form more appropriate to its date of composition.
Auber’s very substantial theatrical output categorises him firmly as a jobbing composer very much of his time, well aware of – and heavily influenced by – the musical heritage and conventions of the past. Mr Letellier neatly pinpoints the essential modesty of his artistry: “the most amiable French composer of the 19th century… avoided any excess of emotion, never taking feelings to the pitch of intensity. He remained within the limits of the discretely nuanced tones that reflected his own life, his own very particular Parisian elegance” (ibid.). In no way, then, should we think of Auber as a forward-looking stylistic trailblazer who pushed musical boundaries in the manner of, say, his contemporary Hector Berlioz – and today’s performances of his music increasingly recognise and reflect that fact.
That important point is immediately apparent as we listen to the Le Domino noir overture, the opening track of a well-filled ninth volume in Naxos’s ongoing series of discs in which Dario Salvi has been exploring Auber’s largely theatrical output. This latest release, focusing on works written over a relatively short period of time, 1833-1844, once again features a regional Czech orchestra. On this occasion, it is the Janáček Philharmonic Ostrava. The modest scale and transparency of its sound, well captured by expert engineering, are qualities far more appropriate to this repertoire than the bandstand bombast – viscerally enjoyable though it remains as an occasional guilty indulgence – that generally characterised those older recorded performances delivered by more glamorous big-name bands.
Salvi’s expertly paced, neatly shaped account of the overture offers a good indication of his overall approach to this repertoire. The jaunty, playful rhythms that, as we have come to appreciate throughout this ongoing series, characterise much of Auber’s stage music are applied with precisely calculated effect. They underpin and propel performances that are generally crisp, taut and lean. We can certainly hear that in the following tracks – three excerpts from Auber’s ballet La Gitana recorded here for the first time. Albeit boasting a distinctly unoriginal storyline centred on a long-lost child kidnapped years earlier by gypsies, this substantial work, consisting of a Prologue and three Acts, was initially a major success. One contemporary reviewerconsidered it “one of the most beautiful ballets ever produced”. In reality, however, the positive audience reaction was largely due to the performance of its star Marie Taglioni. Once she was no longer dancing the role, La Gitana fell out of favour and into obscurity. That is something of a shame because the three numbers heard on this disc create a very positive impression. I was especially taken with a rather strikingly orchestrated mazourke, featuring some fruitily gurgling clarinets, and a pas pour Mademoiselle Taglioni. The latterimmediately brings to mind the music that Auber was to compose almost a full two decades later for his delightful 1857 ballet Marco Spada (see Letellier op. cit., p.279-283). Such stylistic consistency confirms the fact that the composer’s mature style was, indeed, pretty fixed and conservative.
Mr Letellier has usefully identified two of the “leading themes” that feature in Auber’s operas. They are “the notion of the rebel outlaw” (op. cit., pp.136-157) and “disguise and assumed identity” (op. cit., pp.0248-259). Both feature in La Sirène, an opéra comique that, with a story about Italian banditry and a central character who is a criminal mastermind named Marco, reminds one inevitably of Auber’s 1852 opera Marco Spada(not to be confused, please note, with the aforementioned ballet of the same name). Like the readers of today’s red-top newspapers, mid-19th century theatregoers were clearly fascinated and thrilled by on-stage depictions of diabolical delinquency. Auber seems entirely happy to have catered – albeit in rather repetitive fashion – to their tastes. The Sirène of the title turns out to be Zerlina, the crime boss’s sister who acts as a honeytrap for his victims. [She is not, incidentally, to be mistaken for the similarly-named Zerline, heroine of the composer’s 1851 opera of that name. Guilty of nothing worse than selling a few oranges, she, in a conclusive demonstration of the French criminal classes’ aforementioned damnable villainy, was thereupon kidnapped by pirates.]
The overture turns out to be not the sort of thing that one might have expected to preface such a penny-dreadful tale. Rather, it is an elegant piece, much of it in simple waltz time, with one of its primary melodies once again familiar to anyone who knows the Marco Spada ballet. The self-evident care and respect lavished on the music in this performance elevates it considerably.
From Abruzzi bandits, Mr Salvi’s programme transports us to chillier Swedish climes and the story of the assassination of King Gustav III. Unlike Verdi, who was forced by political pressure to relocate the story from Stockholm to Boston and to re-characterise the unfortunate king as a colonial governor, Auber seems to have encountered no problem with the French authorities when he depicted a royal murder. Lavish to the point of excess, his Gustave III, ou le bal masque featured large-scale dance episodes; the final scene deployed, it was said, 300 people on a stage lit by 1,600 candles. Meanwhile, no fewer than 122 dancers performed one particular galop, which, given that dance form’s speed and lively vivacity, must have demanded choreography of the greatest precision.
Gustave III’s six airs de danse and two marches take up more than half of this disc’s 15 tracks, and they are often rather more substantial than one might have expected. A lively Act 5 pas de folies, for instance, takes well over five minutes, while an Act 1 andantino and an Act 5 allemande both come in at more than six. Auber was, of course, composing a few decades before, say, Delibes – let alone Tchaikovsky. His orchestration and musical intentions were clearly less ambitious than those later pioneers of the modern ballet score. All the same, his Gustave III dances by no means outstay their welcome and are clearly much more than mere divertimenti.
This ongoing series has offered occasional surprises in the form of music not connected with Auber’s theatrical output at all. Volume 9’s final track thus offers us the world-premiere recording of the Marche funèbre pour la translation des Cendres de Napoléon, an appropriately solemn piece originally performed at the 1840 reburial of Emperor Napoleon I’s ashes in Paris. Auber’s significance in French musical life at the time is indicated by the fact that he was one of only three composers – alongside Halévy and Adam – called upon to supply a work for the occasion.
Berlioz, who might also, perhaps, have expected a commission, presented his own Grande symphonie funèbre et triomphale in the same year. Yet in spite of the fact that it flaunted the same funèbre tag, that was a far more ambitious, large-scale work. It had, moreover, a very different musical objective. It did not confine itself solely to expressions of doleful sorrow and commemoration but, ultimately, gave vent to a prolonged burst of ecstatic celebration. As such, it simply cannot be compared in any meaningful way with Auber’s more modestly proportioned but rather affecting piece.
We ought, finally, to acknowledge Dario Salvi’s dedication – and Naxos’s commercial commitment – to this ground-breaking project. Wikipedia lists Auber’s 48 operas, while Mr Letellier gives the total as 44; the discrepancy arises from whether to include a few instances in which the composer made relatively small contributions to co-composed portmanteau productions. It is quite remarkable that so far no fewer than 42 of them have been represented, to greater or lesser extents, in this series. We have still to hear anything from Les trois genres (with other music by Boieldieu, 1824), La marquise de Brinvilliers (with contributions from no fewer than eight other composers, 1831), La barcarolle (1845), Les premiers pas (with additional input from Adam, Carafa and Halévy, 1847), Manon Lescaut (1856) and La circassienne (1861). Yet I have high hopes that the ever-inquisitive Mr Salvi will be addressing those omissions in future volumes in this enlightening and very rewarding series of discs.
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