3-039-227 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The late M. Auber, 1871. 'The greatest of all French musicians, Daniel François Esprit Auber, has just passed away, at the advanced age of eighty-nine...Not only was his a long career, it was also a very active one even up to within two years of his death...At first intended for commercial pursuits, and placed when a youth in a London counting-house, young Auber soon took a dislike to an occupation of business routine...His earliest efforts as a dramatic composer were not successful. The one-act operetta "Le Sejour Militaire," produced in 1813, made no impression...Admirable as some of Auber's grand operas are, it is perhaps in the opera-comique that he has most happily developed his own genius and realised the national style which his, of all French music, is destined the longest and most worthily to illustrate...The exquisite melodies of Auber have found an echo in the popular voice all over Europe, while his operas, whence they are derived, must ever charm, when worthily represented, not only by the freshness and genius of the music, but also by the mastery and art displayed in their general construction, and in the beauty and brilliancy of the orchestral details'. From "Illustrated London News", 1871.