Return to a Lost Life

Heinz Marecek narrates Alfred Lord Tennyson’s “Enoch Arden” set to music by Richard Strauss. A tale as gripping as the stories of Odysseus or Robinson Crusoe. A symphony of sound in the form of a melodrama set to music by Richard Strauss.

The Munich Court Kapellmeister Richard Strauss was one of the first to take up the suggestion to raise the “melodrama long thought dead” to new heights with his work ENOCH ARDEN, following the great success of Engelbert Humperdinck’s opera “Die Königskinder”, which premiered in 1897.

His first opera ‘Guntram’ had been a failure shortly before, whereupon he had turned primarily to symphonic poetry, but remained in search of new opera material. It was then that the ballad ‘Enoch Arden’ by the English poet Alfred Tennyson (in the translation by Adolf Strodtmann), and he set it to music (dated 26 February) as a melodrama – for his “boss”, the Court Theatre Director Ernst von Possart, a famous “singing actor”, whose “rolling R” was legendary. The world premiere, performed by him and Possart on 24 March 1897 in Munich significantly improved the somewhat strained relationship between the two artists ; and in the years that followed, on many concert tours, they reaped triumph after triumph, indeed “whole streams of female adoration”.

In truth, Strauss had been rather sceptical about the melodrama and had even during the composition of ‘Enoch Arden’ described it as ‘trivial trash’ , yet the great success of the work made him reconsider his views significantly. Moreover, he had probably realised that the ballad, with its alternation between dramatic action, poetic descriptions of nature and heartfelt expressions of emotion, as in his larger-scale works, had provided ample opportunities for an appropriate musical ‘interpretation’ in each instance.

Richard Strauss, who titled the printed edition of his setting ‘Tennyson’s Enoch Arden composed for pianoforte’, had the extensive text recited unaccompanied . In key scenes or “sensitive” plot elements , the piano then joins in, to which the composer entrusts, at the outset, the mysterious G minor prelude, which traces the surging of the ocean waves, over which a simple, self-circling melody symbolises a kind of “sense of home”. Thereafter the piano takes on both “illustrations” of the scenes and (above all) a musical elaboration of the various emotional states of the three characters. And each of these three characters is immediately assigned a characteristic motif, with which Strauss adopts the idea of Wagner’s “leitmotifs” in his own personal form. First, we are introduced to Annie Lee with a figurative, rapidly ascending figure, then to Philipp Ray with a parallel melody ascending in E major thirds, and immediately afterwards to Enoch Arden, whose chordal E-flat major motif is interrupted by a sighing pause and then, with an “exclamation”, jumps into a dissonance.

The subsequent plot strands are now determined by these motifs, depending on which of the three characters is primarily involved, and these motifs also run through the short interludes according to thematic considerations . And the sound of the sea also appears, along with the “circling” melody, until, in the face of Enoch Arden’s imminent death, solemn E-flat major chords and chromatic lines illuminate his final words and lead into a tranquil swan song.

Hartmut Krones
Vienna, November 2023

Heinz Marecek Narrator

Heinz Marecek, born on 17 September 1945 in Vienna, is an Austrian actor, director and cabaret artist.

He studied at the Max Reinhardt Seminar. His first engagement took him to the Vienna Ateliertheater in 1966. From 1968, he performed at the Vienna Volksoper; from 1971 to 1998, he was a member of the ensemble at the Theater in der Josefstadt, where he also directed.

In addition to many roles in television productions, he translates and adapts English-language plays. He is also known from Lindenstraße as Bruno Skabowski and from the historical miniseries Ringstraßenpalais, from the improvised series Die liebe Familie as well as from the film series Der Bockerer. Until 2021, Heinz Marecek played leading roles in the series SOKO Kitzbühel and Die Bergretter. Around 1970, Heinz Marecek married the actress Julia Migenes[1]; this marriage lasted four years. From his second marriage to Christine, he has two children; his daughter Sarah Marecek and his son Ben Marecek are also actors. He lives with his wife on a finca in Ibiza.

Florian Krumpöck Piano

Born in 1978, the son of a cellist and an art historian, Krumpöck learnt the art of piano playing from renowned pianists such as Rudolf Buchbinder, Gerhard Oppitz, Elisabeth Leonskaja and Daniel Barenboim. In 2011, he was appointed as one of the youngest General Music Directors for Concert and Opera at the Volkstheater and as principal conductor of the Norddeutsche Philharmonie ; in 2012, he was appointed principal conductor of the Liechtenstein Symphony Orchestra.

Since summer 2015, Florian Krumpo¨ck has been artistic director of Kultur. Sommer.Semmering.

The musician is known for his solo recitals at international festivals such as those in Salzburg, Bregenz, Bad Kissingen or at the Bach Festival in Leipzig, as well as for his regular performances of complete piano cycles such as the 32 piano sonatas by Ludwig van Beethoven or the complete piano sonatas of Franz Schubert.

As a guest conductor, Krumpo¨ck has performed with, amongst others, the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra, the Gulbenkian Orchestra in Lisbon and the Royal Chapel Orchestra in Copenhagen. Florian Krumpöck performs as a soloist, song accompanist and chamber musician in the majority of all international concerts and recordings on his own instruments.