Enoch Arden (Strauss)

Enoch Arden
Melodrama by Richard Strauss
"Enoch Arden" (watercolour painting by George Goodwin Kilburne
Catalogue	Op. 38, TrV. 181
Text	Albert 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 to the words 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 and finished it in February 1897. Strauss and Possart toured together widely with the melodrama, in a German translation by Adolf Strodtmann.

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.

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. 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), the sea (G minor). 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, Jon Vickers, Michael York, Claude Rains, Benjamin Luxon, Patrick Stewart and Gwyneth Jones, and the pianist's role, including Glenn Gould, Emanuel Ax, and Marc-André Hamelin.