This is a curious anthology. The performances of the two early overtures La scala di seta and Il Signor Bruschino are a delight: the meticulously prepared Santa Cecilia winds and strings songful and dancing on points. And the overture to La Cenerentola is similarly blessed. The overture to Il barbiere di Siviglia is more conventionally done. Nor is the leap from 1816 to 1823 – the Naples years during which Rossini’s orchestrations took on a new range and power – especially well registered in an account of the Semiramide overture whose rhythmic carriage is more suggestive of an early farsa than a later melodramma tragico.

The one rarity here is the overture to Le siège de Corinthe, the revision of the Neapolitan epic Maometto II which Rossini made for the Paris Opéra in 1826. There is a Toscanini recording of this, one of the maestro’s more hair-raising essays in musical terrorism, which is almost as incendiary as the holocaust with which the opera ends. Pappano’s performance is vivid but a good deal more humane.

With a running time of just 70 minutes, we might have expected the overture to L’italiana in Algeri or La gazza ladra to be included here as well. As it is, an hour of overtures is rounded out with a 10 minute set of variations for flute, clarinet, horn and bassoon. Charming rarity though it is, it’s a rum way to end to a disc entitled ‘Rossini Overtures’.