Richard Strauss (1864-1949)
ENOCH ARDEN, OP. 38
A Melodrama
Poem by Alfred, Lord Tennyson
I. Prelude. Andante. "Long lines of cliff breaking..." 07:16
II. "So Enoch and Annie Were Wed..." 09:36
III. "Then, Philip, Coming Somewhat Closer, Spoke..." 05:28
IV. "And Where Was Enoch?" 05:23
V. "Thus, Over Enoch's Early Silvering Head..." 03:41
VI. "Now, When The Dead Man Comes to Life..." 05:44
VII. "Woman, Disturb Me Not Now, At the Last..." 04:05
Lucy Rowan, Narrator
Stephen Hough, Pianist
A commentator on melodrama has to fight his way out of a wasp's nest of confusing definitions. The title page of the score for Enoch Arden reads: Enoch Arden -- ein Melodrama fur Pianoforte zweihandig von Richard Strauss. Looking at the score we know immediately, of course, what was intended: descriptive music to be played at the piano while Tennyson's Enoch Arden is spoken by a recitalist.
It is to be noted that the term melodrama in this sense is not English. Webster's dictionary defines melodrama as "a kind of drama, commonly romantic or emotional, with both song and instrumental music interspersed, the latter accompanying the action more or less descriptively; a stage play of this kind." Historically, the stage melodrama goes back to the French boulevard theaters of the Napoleonic era, to the panorames dramatiques where the strictly literary branch of melodramatic art was developed .. Typified action, typified characters are characteristic features of this genre, which lived on in the silent movies with their live background music. Melodrama in the German sense (spoken texts with musical accompaniment) developed first in 18th-century opera. For a long time a composer by the name of Georg Benda was thought to be the father of the genre, but according to new research the honor goes to
Rousseau, whose melodrama Pygmalion was performed in 1762. The best-known examples of operatic melodrama are the dungeon scene in Fidelio and the wolfs glen act in Der Freischutz, but nearly every composer, major or minor, tried his hand at it at one time or other. During the second half of the 19th century melodramas became concert staples; there were famous recitalists, and from the olden days the name of Ludwig Wullner still sticks in this reviewer's mind. Liszt wrote five melodramas; Strauss, besides composing Enoch Arden, also provided "melodrama" for Das Schloss am Meer, a poem by Ludwig Uhland, a once-famous minor romantic.
The term melodramatic, with its peculiar associations, might easily be used to cover both art forms, the stage plays and the spokentext-with-music form; the aforementioned scenes from Fidelio and Der Freischutz are surely as "melodramatic" as any melodrame, and many of the German melodramas used horror epics or gothic ballads. Historic detachment allows us to enjoy melodrama once again, and in particular a work like Strauss-Tennyson's Enoch Arden, perhaps the least melodramatic of all the works of its kind.
Tennyson's Enoch Arden appeared in 1864 as part of a collection called Idylls of the Hearth. An immediate success and best-seller, Enoch
was translated into practically all the spoken languages of the world. The translation by Adolf Strodtmann which Strauss used was the fourth which appeared in Germany in 1886.
Based on a real-life event, Enoch is one of those countless homecoming epics which have moved and delighted audiences since the days of the Odyssee. As innumerable as the tales are the variants. Usually the homecomer's situation is defined by recognition or non-recognition, by the question: Is he really the one? In Enoch Arden the test is not allowed to take place, although Enoch would have had no trouble proving his identity to his wife (he proved it to Miriam, the gossipy host of his dying days). Having returned after more than ten years, Enoch sees (just sees) his wife Annie married happily to Philipp, his boyhood friend, with his (Enoch's) children at her side and with a newborn child as well. Enoch crawls away, not to show his face again, just as Philipp had crawled away some long ten years before, after he had detected Enoch and Annie in a situation of tender understanding. And shortly afterwards Enoch gives up and resigns himself to die, permitting his family to know of him only after life has fled.
is a tragedy and, although it contains sentimental touches, the basic attitude is one of honest realism. True, there are no villains in the story, only three good people, but these three are not good in a melodramatic or idyllic way. They have and inspire mixed feelings, and the righteousness of their actions is open to dispute. Money is one of the principals of the action in true 19th-century fashion. (Enoch leaves his family in the hope to return a rich man; Philipp is rich and, good as it is of him to send Enoch's children to school, he can do it because he can afford it; Enoch gets a "costly" funeral, as we learn from the last line of the poem, which has astounded many readers.)
Thus Enoch Arden is neither a melodrama nor an idyll (these are really two sides of the same coin: typified action versus typified inaction); it
Enoch Arden is a masterpiece of narration and description. If Strauss left long stretches of the poem musically bare (such as Enoch's accident at home which initiates his financial misery, or the shipwreck, which condemns him to the long, long stay on the tropical island), he was able to do this because Tennyson's narrative mastery could be depended upon to keep the listener spellbound. Strauss wrote the music for Enoch in 1890; this was the period of his early symphonic poems, and he was busy and successful beyond his wildest dreams. The melodrama afforded him a "diversion" (to use his own term); also, he was glad to oblige his friend Ernst von Possart, the director of the Hofoper in Vienna, who
liked to recite poetry. During the 1897/98 concert season Strauss and Possart toured Germany with Enoch Arden to enthusiastic audiences.
We should not expect from Strauss a deep and complicated interpretation of the tale. The story and the music touch and interact, but, as in the operas, the connection is a loose one. Strauss' light and masterly procedures keep the tale from becoming "melodramatic," however, and his music furnishes a great deal of stimulation: it provides the stage lights, as it were, for the recitation, and it illuminates the words in the literal and also (to a certain extent) in the metaphorical sense of the word.
The score is based on thematic recurrence, or leitmotifs. The three protagonists have their motifs: Annie (G major, sextuplets, depicting a feeling, pliable woman), Philipp (E major, idealistic and warmhearted), and Enoch (a leaping motif, fit to characterize a "problem" person with erratic impulses). As soon as the three children are introduced, the three motifs are displayed within a narrow space and are immediately developed. After Philipp and Annie are married and a child is born, both motifs (Philipp's and Annie's) are united in a beautiful contrapuntal combination. The work opens with a musical description of the "breakers," the onslaught of the ocean against the village where the three children
live; the waves are overlaid with a theme which one might call the motif of fate (it anticipates the song of the three island deities from Ariadne auf Naxos). After Enoch has left, we hear an Allegro appassionato depicting Annie's sense of desolation; the passage returns in full force after Enoch, back from his journey, decides not to disturb Annie's marriage.
An interesting development of Enoch's motif takes place while Annie has her dream, the dream which misinterprets the Biblical oracle, one of Tennyson's masterstrokes. Interestingly, Strauss has the dream sequence begin with Philipp's motif, indicating, in this manner, that it is really Philipp who is on Annie's mind, and that her dream (she sees Enoch dead and his redeemed soul "under the palm tree") is wish fulfillment in the classical Freudian way.
It is with this spare material that Strauss weaves his beautiful musical vignettes. And he does something else: he structures the poem by means of his musical cadences, which establish provisional endings and caesuras, providing chapters to Tennyson's verse.
This recording presents a slightly shortened version of Tennyson's poem. All the sections for which Strauss wrote his music have been rendered without any abridgment.
Kurt Oppens
Actress Lucy Rowan has appeared in various productions in Washington, DC, including several with the Catholic University Players, where she performed under such directors as Walter Kerr and Alan Schneider. Miss Rowan combines her dramatic abilities with an extensive knowledge of music and has performed recitals in New York City, Washington, DC, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Montreal, and other prominent cultural centers. She has appeared with a number of orchestras, and has recorded with Bartok Records. Miss Rowan is the narrator in the Musical Heritage Society's recording of three Kipling Just So Stories (LP: MHS 7010T; Cassette: MHC 9010W).
Acclaimed young British pianist Stephen Hough, winner of the 1983 Naumburg International Piano Competition, made his Ravinia Festival/Chicago Symphony debut in 1984 performing Brahms' Second Piano Concerto. He has also performed with the London Symphony Orchestra, the London Philharmonic, the Royal Philharmonic, the Philharmonia Orchestra of London, the Singapore and Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestras, the Detroit Symphony, Milwaukee Symphony, Toronto Symphony, and The St. Paul Chamber Orchestra. During the 1986-87 season, Mr. Hough toured Germany with the London Symphony and conductor Claudio Abbado, and recorded the Hummel concerti with the English Chamber Orchestra. Recently he joined violinist Robert Mann for the complete cycle of Beethoven violin sonatas in Boston and New York, as well as at Ravinia during the summer of 1985. Mr. Hough made his highly acclaimed New York recital debut in 1984 at Alice Tully Hall. Born in Cheshire, England, Mr. Hough graduated with honors from the Royal Northern College of Music, and studied at the Juilliard School.
