| Enoch Arden | |
|---|---|
| Melodrama by Richard Strauss | |
 "Enoch Arden" (watercolour painting by George Goodwin Kilburne | |
| Catalogue | TrV 181 |
| Opus | 38 |
| Text | Adolf Strodtmann (1829–1879), after Alfred Tennyson's Enoch Arden |
| Language | German |
| Composed | February 1897 |
| Dedication | Ernst von Possart |
| Scoring | Spoken voice and piano |
Enoch Arden, Op. 38, TrV. 181, is a melodrama for narrator and piano, written in 1897 by Richard Strauss setting a German translation of the 1864 poem of the same name by Alfred, Lord Tennyson.
Richard Strauss wrote Enoch Arden for the actor Ernst von Possart, who in 1896 had assisted him in obtaining the post of Chief Conductor at the Bavarian State Opera. He wrote it while engaged in composing Don Quixote [1] and finished it in February 1897. [1] Strauss and Possart toured together widely with the melodrama, in a German translation by Adolf Strodtmann. [2] [3] [1]
It was well received by audiences and Strauss's reputation was enhanced more by it than by his symphonic poems. [4] The following year Strauss capitalised on its success by writing Das Schloss am Meere (The Castle by the Sea) to words by Ludwig Uhland. [5]
The work has been described as falling within the genre of incidental music. It consists mainly of brief interludes indicative of changes of time and setting, as well as moments of punctuation and commentary. Each of the two parts is introduced by a prelude and concludes with a postlude. [1] Strauss uses leitmotifs to identify each of the characters: Enoch Arden (a chordal sequence in E flat), Annie Lee (a rising figure in G), Philip Ray (a melody in E), [6] the sea (G minor). [7] He does not develop these into melodies as such, but uses them statically. [3] [1] There are long passages where the piano is silent. [1]
Because of the sparse nature of the music, performances of Enoch Arden are largely dependent on the speaker rather than the pianist. [3] Criticisms of the piece as a musical work per se do not do it justice, as it was never intended to be primarily a piece of music but a dramatic presentation with musical accompaniment.
Enoch Arden was popular in its day, but slipped into obscurity when fashions changed and recitations, declamations and melodramas came to be considered passé. In recent years the work has attracted some notable names in both the speaker's role, including Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Jon Vickers, Michael York, Claude Rains, Benjamin Luxon, Patrick Stewart and Gwyneth Jones, and the pianist's role, including Glenn Gould, Jörg Demus, Stephen Hough, Emanuel Ax, and Marc-André Hamelin.
The English opera singer Richard Temple performed the work various times in the early 20th century, including at Steinway Hall in New York.
Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau presented the work in German a number of times from 1993. [8] He also recorded the work twice, in the mid-1960s [8] and again in 2003. [9] [10]
Michael York has performed the work in English a number of times in Europe and the United States, with different pianists. [11] [1]
Conductor Emil de Cou arranged a version for chamber orchestra and narrator. This was performed with the Virginia Chamber Orchestra and actor Gary Sloan in 2010. [12]
The British actor Andrew Sachs (best known for his role as Manuel in Fawlty Towers ) and the Australian pianist Victor Sangiorgio have toured with a two-man show called "Life after Fawlty", which included Strauss's Enoch Arden. [13] [14]
Enoch Arden was probably first recorded by Erik Rhodes and Gordon Manley sometime in the 1950s. Later Claude Rains and Glenn Gould made the first successful recording in 1962. This was nominated for the 1963 Grammy Awards in the category of Best Documentary or Spoken Word Recording (Other than Comedy). [15]
Later recordings include:
Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau was a German lyric baritone and conductor of classical music. One of the most famous Lieder performers of the post-war period, he is best known as a singer of Franz Schubert's Lieder, particularly "Winterreise" of which his recordings with accompanists Gerald Moore and Jörg Demus are still critically acclaimed half a century after their release.
Gerald Moore CBE was an English classical pianist best known for his career as a collaborative pianist for many distinguished musicians. Among those with whom he was closely associated were Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Elisabeth Schumann, Hans Hotter, Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, Victoria de los Ángeles and Pablo Casals.
Hermann Prey was a German lyric baritone, who was equally at home in the Lied, operatic and concert repertoires. His American debut was in November 1952, with the Philadelphia Orchestra and Eugene Ormandy, and his American recital debut took place in 1956, at New York's Carnegie Hall. As a Lieder singer, he was a gifted interpreter of Schubert, including his song-cycles Die schöne Müllerin and Die Winterreise and the collection of songs Schwanengesang, as well as of Robert Schumann, Richard Strauss and Gustav Mahler. He also appeared frequently as a soloist in Bach's Passions and Brahms' A German Requiem.
Enoch Arden is a narrative poem by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, published in 1864 during his tenure as British poet laureate. The story on which it was based was provided to Tennyson by Thomas Woolner. The poem lends its name to a principle in law that after being missing for a certain number of years a person may be declared dead for purposes of remarriage and inheritance of their survivors.
Jörg Wolfgang Demus was an Austrian classical pianist who appeared internationally and made many recordings. He was also a composer and a lecturer at music academies. In composition and playing, he focused on chamber music and lieder. He played with singers such as Elisabeth Schwarzkopf and Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, as a piano duo with Paul Badura-Skoda, and with string players such as Josef Suk and Antonio Janigro. Demus was instrumental in bringing the historic fortepiano to concert podiums. He was a member of the Legion of Honour, among many awards. He is regarded as one of the leading Austrian pianists of the immediate post-World War II era.
Júlia Várady is a Hungarian-born German soprano who started out as a mezzo-soprano.
Edith Mathis is a Swiss soprano and a leading exponent of the works of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart worldwide. She is known for parts in Mozart operas, but also took part in premieres of operas such as Henze's Der junge Lord.
Karl (Rudolf) Engel was a Swiss pianist.
Wolfgang Meyer was a German clarinetist and professor of clarinet at the Musikhochschule Karlsruhe. He worked internationally as a soloist, in chamber music ensembles, and in jazz, with a repertoire from early music played on historical instruments to world premieres.
Der Zwerg is a lied for voice and piano by Franz Schubert, written in the mid-1820s on a text by Matthäus von Collin. The poem is in terza rima. In Otto Erich Deutsch's catalogue of Schubert's works, it is Op. 22, No. 1, D. 771.
Frederick Moyer is an American concert pianist.
Artur Martin Rother was a German conductor who worked mainly in the opera house.
Archiv Produktion is a classical music record label of German origin. It originated in 1949 as a classical label for the Deutsche Grammophon Gesellschaft (DGG), and in 1958 Archiv was established as a subsidiary of DGG, specialising in recordings of Early and Baroque music. It has since developed a particular focus on "historically informed performance" and the work of artists of the Early music revival movement of the 20th and 21st centuries.
Konrad Jarnot is an English baritone who works in opera and oratorio and is a notable performer of Lieder. He is a professor at the Robert Schumann Hochschule.
John Bell Young was an American concert pianist, music critic and author, best known for his performances and recordings of the music of the Russian composer Alexander Scriabin.
Hartmut Höll is a German pianist and music professor.
Carol Louise Smith was an American contralto who made an international career in opera and concert, and was an academic teacher at the Musikhochschule Zürich and at the Indiana University Bloomington.
Hertha Klust was a German pianist.
Wolf-Eberhard Georg Felix von Lewinski was a German music and theatre critic. He studied violin, piano, trombone, conducting, theatre and opera direction, but turned to musical criticism early. He was chief critic for papers in the Rhein Main area, and worked for several newspapers and broadcasters. He wrote biographies of singers such as Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau and Brigitte Fassbaender, and created television portraits of pianists such as Claudio Arrau and Wilhelm Kempff. He was also an academic lecturer of musical criticism.
Benjamin Appl is a German-British lyric baritone, a classical singer who has appeared world-wide in opera houses and concert halls, particularly known as a Lieder singer.
