''Enoch Arden'', Op. 38, TrV. 181, is a

melodrama A melodrama is a Drama, dramatic work in which plot, typically sensationalized for a strong emotional appeal, takes precedence over detailed characterization. Melodrama is "an exaggerated version of drama". Melodramas typically concentrate on ...

for narrator and piano, written in 1897 by

Richard Strauss Richard Georg Strauss (; ; 11 June 1864 – 8 September 1949) was a German composer and conductor best known for his Tone poems (Strauss), tone poems and List of operas by Richard Strauss, operas. Considered a leading composer of the late Roman ...

setting a German translation of the 1864 poem of the same name by

Alfred, Lord Tennyson Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson (; 6 August 1809 – 6 October 1892) was an English poet. He was the Poet Laureate during much of Queen Victoria's reign. In 1829, Tennyson was awarded the Chancellor's Gold Medal at Cambridge for one of ...

History

Richard Strauss wrote ''Enoch Arden'' for the actor

Ernst von Possart Ernst von Possart (11 May 18418 April 1921) was a German actor and theatre director. Possart was born in Berlin and was early an actor in Breslau, Bern, and Hamburg. Connected with the Munich Court Theatre after 1864, he became the leading dire ...

, who in 1896 had assisted him in obtaining the post of Chief Conductor at the

Bavarian State Opera The Bavarian State Opera () is a German opera company based in Munich. Its main venue is the Nationaltheater München, and its orchestra the Bavarian State Orchestra. History The parent ensemble of the company was founded in 1653, under El ...

, at that time still known as the Bavarian Court Opera. He wrote it while engaged in composing ''Don Quixote'' and finished it in February 1897. Strauss and Possart toured together widely with the melodrama, in a German translation by Adolf Strodtmann.Music Web International
/ref>Answers.com
/ref> It was well received by audiences and Strauss's reputation was enhanced more by it than by his symphonic poems. The following year Strauss capitalised on its success by writing ''Das Schloss am Meere'' (''The Castle by the Sea'') to words by

Ludwig Uhland Johann Ludwig Uhland (26 April 1787 – 13 November 1862) was a German poet, philologist, literary historian, lawyer and politician. Biography He was born in Tübingen, Württemberg, and studied jurisprudence at the university there, b ...

. The work has been described as falling within the genre of

incidental music Incidental music is music in a play, television program, radio program, video game, or some other presentation form that is not primarily musical. The term is less frequently applied to film music, with such music being referred to instead as th ...

. 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. Strauss uses

leitmotif A leitmotif or () is a "short, recurring musical phrase" associated with a particular person, place, or idea. It is closely related to the musical concepts of ''idée fixe'' or ''motto-theme''. The spelling ''leitmotif'' is a partial angliciz ...

s 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),Audiophile Audition
/ref> the sea (G minor).Audiophile Audition
/ref> He does not develop these into melodies as such, but uses them statically. There are long passages where the piano is silent. Because of the sparse nature of the music, performances of ''Enoch Arden'' are largely dependent on the speaker rather than the pianist. 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 Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau (; 28 May 1925 – 18 May 2012) was a German lyric baritone and conductor of classical music. One of the most famous Lieder (art song) performers of the post-war period, he is best known as a singer of Franz Schubert's ...

Jon Vickers Jonathan Stewart Vickers, (October 29, 1926 – July 10, 2015), known professionally as Jon Vickers, was a Canadian heldentenor. Born in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan, he was the sixth in a family of eight children. In 1950, he was awarded a s ...

Michael York Michael York (born Michael Hugh Johnson; 27 March 1942) is an English film, television, and stage actor. After performing on stage with the Royal National Theatre, he had a breakthrough in films by playing Tybalt in Franco Zeffirelli's ''Romeo ...

Claude Rains William Claude Rains (10 November 188930 May 1967) was a British and American actor whose career spanned almost seven decades. He was the recipient of numerous accolades, including four Academy Award nominations for Academy Award for Best Supp ...

Benjamin Luxon Benjamin Matthew Luxon (24 March 1937 – 26 July 2024) was a British baritone. Biography Luxon was born in Redruth, Cornwall on 24 March 1937, the son of Ernest Maxwell Luxon, an amateur singer, and his wife Lucille Pearl, née Grigg. He stud ...

Patrick Stewart Sir Patrick Stewart (born 13 July 1940) is an English actor. With a career spanning over seven decades of Patrick Stewart on stage and screen, stage and screen, he has received List of awards and nominations received by Patrick Stewart, variou ...

and Gwyneth Jones, and the pianist's role, including

Glenn Gould Glenn Herbert Gould (; né Gold; 25 September 19324 October 1982) was a Canadian classical pianist. He was among the most famous and celebrated pianists of the 20th century, renowned as an interpreter of the keyboard works of Johann Sebastian ...

Jörg Demus Jörg Wolfgang Demus (2 December 1928 – 16 April 2019) 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 ...

Stephen Hough Sir Stephen Andrew Gill Hough (; born 22 November 1961) is a British-Australian classical pianist, composer and writer. Biography Hough was born in Heswall (then in Cheshire) on the Wirral Peninsula, and grew up in Thelwall, where he began pi ...

Emanuel Ax Emanuel "Manny" Ax (born June 8, 1949) is a Grammy Award-winning American classical pianist. He is known for his chamber music collaborations with cellist Yo-Yo Ma and violinists Isaac Stern and Young Uck Kim, as well as his piano recitals and p ...

, and

Marc-André Hamelin Marc-André Hamelin, OC, OQ (born September 5, 1961) is a Canadian virtuoso pianist and composer who has received 11 Grammy Award nominations. He is on the faculty of the New England Conservatory of Music. Biography Born in Montreal, Quebec ...

Performances

The English opera singer Richard Temple performed the work various times in the early 20th century, including at

Steinway Hall Steinway Hall (German: ) is the name of buildings housing concert halls, showrooms and sales departments for Steinway & Sons pianos. The first Steinway Hall was opened in 1866 in New York City. Today, Steinway Halls and are located in cities suc ...

in New York.

presented the work in German a number of times from 1993. He also recorded the work twice, in the mid-1960s and again in 2003.

has performed the work in English a number of times in Europe and the United States, with different pianists. Conductor

Emil de Cou Emil de Cou is an American conductor who became associate conductor of the National Symphony Orchestra ( John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts) in September 2003. He has led the orchestra on residency tours in five states, in subscription ...

arranged a version for chamber orchestra and narrator. This was performed with the Virginia Chamber Orchestra and actor Gary Sloan in 2010. The British actor

Andrew Sachs Andreas Siegfried Sachs (7 April 1930 – 23 November 2016), known professionally as Andrew Sachs, was a German-born British actor. He made his name on British television and found his greatest fame for his portrayal of the comical Spanish waite ...

(best known for his role as Manuel in ''

Fawlty Towers ''Fawlty Towers'' is a British television sitcom written by John Cleese and Connie Booth, originally broadcast on BBC Two in 1975 and 1979. Two series of six episodes each were made. The series is set in Fawlty Towers, a dysfunctional fictional ...

'') and the Australian pianist Victor Sangiorgio have toured with a two-man show called "Life after Fawlty", which included Strauss's ''Enoch Arden''.

Recordings

''Enoch Arden'' was probably first recorded by Erik Rhodes and Gordon Manley sometime in the 1950s. Later

and

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). Later recordings include: *

and

(1964)Speaker
mwolf * Hans-Reinhard Müller and Carl Seemann (1978) * Gert Westphal and John Buttrick (1984) * Elisabet Woska and Begonia Uriarte (1986; live recording; the first recording with a female narrator) * Bohumil Svarc and Jiri Pokorný (1987; first recording in Czech) * Lucy Rowan and

(1987) * Mac Morgan and William Ransom (1989) * René Schirrer and

Christian Ivaldi Christian Ivaldi (born 2 September 1938) is a French pianist. Ivaldi was born in Paris. He studied at the Paris Conservatory with Jacques Février and took a Premier Prix in piano performance, as well as in chamber music, counterpoint, and a ...

(1991) * Ulrich Wildgruber and

Peter Stamm Peter Stamm (born 18 January 1963 in Münsterlingen) is a Swiss writer. His prize-winning books have been translated into more than thirty languages. For his entire body of work and his accomplishments in fiction, he was nominated for the Inte ...

(1994) * Nick Garrett and Peter Hewitt (1996) *

and

(1998; Vickers’ debut recording as a speaker) * Paul Schmidt and Yvar Mikhashoff (1999) *

and John Bell Young (2002)The Victorian Web: Richard Strauss’s Enoch Arden
/ref> *

and Frederick Moyer (2002) *

and Burkhard Kehring (2003)The Guardian, 1 July 2005
/ref> * Michael Ducarel and Martin Cousin (2003) * Laura Marinoni and Pietro De Luigi (2004; the first recording in Italian). * David Ripley and Chad R. Bowles (2006) * Sir

and

(2007) *

Brigitte Fassbaender Brigitte Fassbaender (; born 3 July 1939), is a German mezzo-soprano opera singer and a stage director. From 1999 to 2012 she was Theater manager, intendant (managing director) of the Tyrolean State Theatre in Innsbruck, Austria. She holds the ti ...

and Wolfram Rieger (2013) TwoPianists Records, Set TP1039312, CD 4
/ref> * John Bell and

Simon Tedeschi Simon Tedeschi (born 1 May 1981) is an Australian classical pianist and writer. Early life Tedeschi was born in Gosford to Mark Tedeschi QC, Senior Crown Prosecutor for New South Wales, and doctor Vivienne Tedeschi, the daughter of a Poli ...

(2017)

External links

Score
at

International Music Score Library Project The International Music Score Library Project (IMSLP), also known as the Petrucci Music Library after publisher Ottaviano Petrucci, is a subscription-based digital library of public-domain music scores. The project uses MediaWiki software, and ...

.
"Enoch Arden"
- original German text (in

Fraktur Fraktur () is a calligraphic hand of the Latin alphabet and any of several blackletter typefaces derived from this hand. It is designed such that the beginnings and ends of the individual strokes that make up each letter will be clearly vis ...

type) from Strodtmann's ''Tennysons ausgewählte Dichtungen'' at Hathitrust

References

{{Portal bar, Classical music Adaptations of works by Alfred, Lord Tennyson Compositions with a narrator 1897 compositions Chamber music by Richard Strauss Music based on poems Melodramas