Daniel-François-Esprit AUBER (1782-1871)
Overtures
Czech Chamber Philharmonic Orchestra Pardubice/Dario Salvi
rec. 2018, The House of Culture Dukla, Pardubice, Czech Republic
NAXOS 8.574005 [64:50]
Let’s begin with a mystery that, while it may not be worthy of Agatha Christie or Ngaio Marsh, is, all the same, an intriguing one. In 2016 I reviewed – and generally rather enjoyed - a Naxos CD of music performed by the Orchestre de Cannes under the direction of Wolfgang Dörner (review). Its title Auber overtures 1 suggested, it seemed safe to assume, that it was not merely a standalone disc but the first in an upcoming series.
Now, less than four years later, Naxos has released another CD of Auber overtures. We might reasonably have expected it to be the second volume in that Orchestre de Cannes/Dörner series. Actually, however, it’s been recorded by the Czech Chamber Philharmonic Orchestra Pardubice (not a name that exactly trips off the tongue, so henceforth it’s CCPOP) under the conductor Dario Salvi. Even more perplexingly, however, even though this time there’s no number 1 emblazoned on the CD cover, it’s described as “the first volume of a project to record all the overtures to [Auber’s] 31 opéras-comiques, seven opéras, three drames lyriques and seven other stage works”. The first volume? What about the Orchestre de Cannes/Dörner Auber overtures 1? Hadn’t that been part of a similar, if not identical, project?
Of course, the introduction of the CCPOP to supersede – or perhaps merely to supplement – the Orchestre de Cannes series may be accounted for on commercial or other grounds. Let’s, however, take a moment or two to investigate whether there might be some essentially musical considerations coming into play here.
There might, for example, be an issue with the scale of the performances. As admirers of Albert Wolff’s classic Auber overture recordings with the Paris Conservatoire Orchestra (review) will confirm, older accounts of this repertoire tended to utilise the full resources of a modern symphony orchestra. In light of the move towards historically informed performance in the second half of the last century, however, such performances have come to be perceived as inauthentically and inappropriately large-scale and so subsequent recordings have tended to deploy smaller numbers of musicians. The Gothenburg Opera Orchestra, for instance, conducted in the year 2000 by B. Tommy Andersson in François Auber ouvertures et ballets rares (review), certainly sounds somewhat reduced in size – a supposition perhaps supported by references on its cover to performances of “original versions” and “critical editions from the autograph scores”. Now, two decades further on, both the Orchestre de Cannes and CCPOP discs offer accounts that can plausibly be reckoned as replicating, at least in scale, those given in the Paris theatres of Auber’s own era. Examination of the Naxos booklet photographs of the Cannes and Pardubice musicians suggests that they’re virtually identical in number (I counted 37 plus M. Dörner in Cannes and 36 in Pardubice). We can conclude with some confidence, therefore, that authenticity in performance “size” doesn’t seem to be a feature that distinguishes either orchestra from the other.
Looked at from a purely musical point of view, one possible explanation for the utilisation of CCPOP may, however, be hinted at by Robert Ignatius Letellier in his excellent booklet essay. There he observes that “in this recording attention is given to the French style of playing (double dotted rhythms, sharp staccato), and remains as close as possible to the original metronome markings”. Given that Mr Letellier, an authority on the theatre music of this period, also wrote the notes for – and, presumably, listened carefully to - the 2016 Cannes disc, perhaps his specific words in this recording are significant in indicating at least one distinguishing feature of the CCPOP performances.
Unfortunately, it’s impossible to verify that particular theory because none of the overtures to be found on this new release replicates any of those taped earlier by either the Orchestre de Cannes/Dörner or the Gothenburg Opera Orchestra/Andersson. Only the music from La neige, ou Le nouvel Éginard has been recorded before, so no less than 14 of the 16 tracks presented here are actually world première recordings. While that is to be warmly welcomed, it does, of course, mean that it is impossible to compare these performances with any other accounts. As a result, the general listener will not easily be able to assess any particular impact made by those “double dotted rhythms, sharp staccato… [and] original metronome markings”. Perhaps, however, as this newly-launched series progresses, the inclusion of overtures already recorded by the Orchestre de Cannes/Dörner, the Gothenburg Opera Orchestra/Andersson and even the Paris Conservatoire Orchestra/Wolff will permit such side-by-side comparison and allow us to judge whether the special claims made for these Czech accounts are actually warranted.
The painstaking reader who has actually clicked the above links to my earlier reviews of the Orchestre de Cannes/Dörner and the Gothenburg Opera Orchestra/Andersson recordings will have already anticipated my general reaction to this music. Some Auber overtures, particularly the better-known ones which haven’t been included on this disc, can be engaging, vivacious and tuneful – “champagne in music”, as it’s been described. I’d include the likes of La muette de Portici (1827), Fra diavolo (1829), Le domino noir (1837) and Les diamants de la couronne (1841) in that category. Nevertheless, many of their fellows – serving, we must remember, a limited and very practical theatrical purpose rather than striving, in themselves, towards any more elevated status – tend more towards the formulaic, the utilitarian and the functional. Often rather slight, insubstantial and thematically less-than-memorable, several, indeed, are so lacking in individual distinctiveness that they can be easily confused with each other. Having listened to this disc from beginning to end more times than I care to remember, I’m afraid that in a spot test I still wouldn’t be able to tell a few moments of Le maçon from La neige, or Emma from Leicester. A neat aphorism has it that “Auber is the best of those composers who sound the same”. This new disc serves to remind us that many of his overtures do too.
Perhaps the lesson here is one that I have pointed out in earlier reviews. In a sequence of 60-odd minutes of music, all of it in much the same idiom and in desperate need of an accompanying theatrical/narrative context if it’s to make its proper impact, the individual felicities of Auber’s scores can easily be lost. This is one of those cases where, to reverse the popular saying, you can’t see the trees for the wood. I’d suggest, therefore, that this is music that’s best listened to a single track - or, in the particular case of this disc, a handful of tracks - at a time.
By the way, the reason that I suggest listening to a handful of tracks at a time is because no less than five of the eight proffered overtures are supplemented by other items. Those are almost all entr’actes and none of them is longer than 1:40 in length. I’m not entirely convinced, in spite of Mr Letellier’s best advocacy, that they add very much to the proceedings and, to be honest, taken out of their dramatic context they make even less impact than the overtures. Someone at Naxos has clearly appreciated their essential musical insipidity for the anticipated order of tracks has been reversed at the very end of the disc, ensuring that it finishes with an overture’s bang rather than an entr’acte’s anticlimactic whimper.
While, as already suggested, the musical distinctiveness of these accounts cannot yet be properly determined, the considerable artistry and the technical skill of both the CCPOP and conductor Dario Salvi are in no doubt whatsoever. Mr Salvi has, so we are told, a particular passion for reviving long-neglected works and he certainly makes the most, on this occasion, of what might be seen as less than ideally promising material. Any complete edition, as this is intended to be, will inevitably, of course, be a mixture of stronger and weaker items and it will be interesting to see what he eventually makes of such undoubted and familiar Auber hits as La muette de Portici and the rest.
By the way, do take a look at Mr Salvi’s website. You’ll see there that in March this year he’ll be recording a great rarity – Peter von Lindpaintner’s 1826 ballet Danina, or Jocko the Brazilian ape, to which I’m looking forward immensely. The website also hosts some interesting and enjoyable video clips. Undoubtedly the most intriguingly bizarre of those gives us ten minutes of extracts from an Opera festival on ice that Mr Salvi conducted at the Royal Opera House in Oman. If you fancy watching skaters – including a couple of Olympic ice dance champions - whizzing around the stage during live performances of extracts from La bohème, Hänsel und Gretel, La traviata, Carmen, Don Giovanni and Die Fledermaus, here’s the video for you. You won’t locate it, however, by following the CD booklet’s suggestion of visiting www.dariosalvi.co.uk because the conductor’s website is, in fact,
www.dariosalvi.com.
Naxos’s engineering is, thankfully, rather more on the ball than its guidance to the internet. The sound quality on this disc is clear and detailed and exhibits a controlled degree of resonance that approximates to what might be heard in a smallish theatre. It serves to present these interesting and enlightening accounts of less than familiar scores in the best possible light.
Rob Maynard
Contents
Le maçon (1825)
Overture [6:28]
Entr’acte to Act 3 [1:19]
Musique de dialogue (Act 2) [1:39]
Le timide, ou Le nouveau séducteur (1826)
Overture [5:46]
Leicester, ou Le château de Kenilworth (1823)
Overture [8:45]
Entr’acte to Act 3 [00:50]
Le séjour militaire (1813)
Overture [6:31]
Emma, ou La promesse imprudente (1821)
Overture [6:11]
Entr’acte to Act 2 [1:40]
Entr’acte to Act 3 [1:33]
La neige, ou Le nouvel Éginard (1823)
Overture [6:51]
Entr’acte to Act 3 [1:38]
Le testament et les billets doux (1819)
Overture [6:08]
Le bergère chatelaine (1820)
Entr’acte to Act 2 [1:06]
Entr’acte to Act 3 [1:10]
Overture [6:29]
