You're not too likely to encounter the music of Auber in today's opera houses and concert halls.
Well, not in this country, although a few months back Belgium's Royal Wallonie Opera resuscitated his 1856 Manon Lescaut, an operatic curiosity that predates Massenet and Puccini's similarly-titled scores by decades.
But Daniel-Francois-Esprit
Auber (1782-1871) was the toast of the Parisian music scene in his time. The genial Rossini described the diminutive Frenchman as a small musician but a great maker of music, although Wagner was less charitable, likening him to a barber who works up a lather but never manages to do any shaving.
Auber's once popular lighter operas, such as Fra Diavolo and The Bronze Horse, lost their appeal in the twentieth century when, as Gustav Kobbe put it, audiences were less willing to tread the sunny middle road of opera comique.
His overtures, however, do retain a period charm and this initial volume of eight of them marks an ongoing commitment by Naxos to record the composer's complete output.
