Die lustigen Weiber von Windsor (The Merry Wives of Windsor): Overture

Among the traditional events in the calendar of the Vienna Philharmonic, alongside its famous New Year’s Day celebration, is an annual Nicolai concert, dedicated to the memory of Otto Nicolai who founded the orchestra in 1842. Although he conducted the Vienna Philharmonic in the Overture to The Merry Wives of Windsor in 1847, the opera itself was turned down by the    Royal Opera in Vienna. Sadly, he died before he was able to witness the immense success it was to enjoy – not least in Vienna, where it retains its place in the repertoire alongside that other masterful version of Shakespeare’s comedy, Verdi’s Falstaff.

The atmospheric material of the slow introduction to the Overture derives from the last scene, set at night by Herne’s Oak in Windsor Forest. As Falstaff’s tormentors enter, disguised as fairies, the tempo accelerates to allegro vivace, its lightly articulated main theme eventually being offset by a lovely lilting, waltz-like melody on violins – a melody which, though it is one of the best in the whole score, never appears in the opera itself.