Conducted by Leonard Davies
Norman Williams (bass)
Nicolai, like Mascagni and Leoncavallo in more recent times, was a one-work composer. His fame rests on his opera The Merry Wives of Windsor. In England, however, we know only the overture with its romantic introduction exquisitely painting the moonlit forest of Windsor.
Incidentally, one melody which appears later in the piece evidently inspired one of the loveliest tunes in The Mastersingers. Wagner, rehearsing his own masterpiece, is said on one occasion to have stopped the orchestra with a cry of dismay : ' Good heavens, gentlemen! This is Nicolai, and I never noticed it! '