Strauss: Enoch Arden

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The traditions of speaking with and over music gained a new lease of life in 19th-century bourgeois drawing rooms, fed especially by Schumann and Liszt, two of Strauss's idols. As he would later... — Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010 More…

Release Date: 9th Jul 2007
Catalogue No: 88697090562
Label: Sony
Length: 61 minutes

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Strauss, R: Enoch Arden, Op. 38, A melodrama for piano and speaker after Alfred Lord Tennyson

Work length53:01

$11.70

$15.30

Patrick Stewart (speaker), Emanuel Ax (piano)

Prelude. Andante. "Long lines of cliff breaking"

Track length7:15

$1.30

$1.70

"So these were wed" Langsam

Track length5:00

$1.30

$1.70

Allegro appassionato. "She when the day, that Enoch mentioned"

Track length5:40

$1.30

$1.70

Tranquillo. "And so ten years, since Enoch left"

Track length7:34

$1.30

$1.70

Annie's dream. Langsam. "When lo! Her Enoch sitting on a height"

Track length3:57

$1.30

$1.70

Prelude. Allegro moderato. "And where was Enoch?"

Track length6:22

$1.30

$1.70

"Thus over Enoch's early silvering head"

Track length6:14

$1.30

$1.70

Allegro agitato. "When the dead man comes to life"

Track length7:18

$1.30

$1.70

Langsam. "Women, disturb me not at the last"

Track length3:41

$1.30

$1.70

Strauss, R: Andante, Op. 3, No. 1 from Five Piano Pieces for Solo Piano

Work length4:16

$1.30

$1.70

Emanuel Ax (piano)

Strauss, R: Allegro Molto, Op. 3 No. 4 from Five Piano Pieces for Solo Piano

Work length4:22

$1.30

$1.70

Emanuel Ax (piano)

Reviews
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Reviews

2010

The traditions of speaking with and over music gained a new lease of life in 19th-century bourgeois drawing rooms, fed especially by Schumann and Liszt, two of Strauss's idols. As he would later with the Alpine Symphony and Die Frau ohneSchatten, Strauss often tried to surpass his models in scale and ambition, setting (in 1897) a full-on 50 minutes of Tennysonian neuroses about the Victorian male's ever-present fear that he would journey overseas in the service of family and Empire, only to return unrecognised and excluded (in this poem, voluntarily) from hearth and home.
The genius of Enoch Arden lies in Strauss's positioning of the actually rather small amount of music: he introduces, interludes and comments on the narrative, but only rarely underpins it. The actor has to take much of the initiative in style and pacing. He must decide whether to remain glowingly neutral, as the veteran Claude Rains does with Glenn Gould (Sony) or pitch in and characterise both the ménage à trois at the centre of the tale and the dramatic locations of the story as does Fischer-Dieskau (DG).
Patrick Stewart has a naturally compelling voice.
He opts for a soft Northern burr for Enoch, friend Philip and their girl Annie, and a cunning use of volume and pace for the story's dramatic peaks.
Ax, whose spacious, fluent control and use of colours as if lit from behind often remind one of Schnabel, partners perfectly, taking deliberately a more neutral line. The recording is natural and free of trickery. Whoever's idea it was to follow the melodrama with two of the Op 3 piano pieces has provided the ideal wind-down after Strauss's (intentionally) short and unmelodramatic postlude.
Hugely recommended.

December 2007

Patrick Stewart has a naturally compelling voice. He opts for a soft Northern burr for Enoch, friend Philip and their girl Annie, and a cunning use of volume and pace for the story's dramatic peaks. Ax, whose spacious, fluent control and use of colours as if lit from behind often remind one of Schnabel, partners perfectly, taking deliberately a more neutral line. Hugely recommended.

Strauss: Enoch Arden

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