'This is the time when sword-blades green,
With gold and purple damascene,
Pierce the brown crocus-bed a-row.
Katharine Tynan Hinkson
The death-rate among eighteenth-century Operas was high. Of the hundreds of such works then written, comparatively few have survived. Mehul was a distinguished Composer of that time, but of his two dozen Operas scarcely one is known to us now. In some instances the Overtures have been kept in the repertory, and very effective many of them are. The Opera. Young Henry's Hunt, produced in 1797, is long forgotten, but its jolly Overture, made up chiefly of hunting tunes, is worth reviving.
Some of the melodies are traditional, and one or two are apparently borrowed from a Hunting Chorus in Haydn's The Seasons.
The Cymric Madrigalists, conducted by J. M. Morris