NIGHTCAP CONCERT SERIES
Melissa Rose, piano, and Jim Lovensheimer, narrator
With pre-concert talk by Joy Calico
Tuesday, January 20
Steve & Judy Turner Recital Hall
8 p.m. Pre-concert talk
8:30 p.m. Performance
Enoch Arden by Richard Strauss
Lovensheimer and Rose perform Enoch Arden, Richard Strauss’ melodrama setting of an 1864 epic poem by Alfred, Lord Tennyson. Composed in 1897 for the actor Ernst von Possart, the work was performed widely by the two friends. It continued a popular Romantic tradition of creating theater by setting spoken poetry to music, and was a popular example of the chamber music genre to which Arnold Schoenberg was responding when he wrote Pierrot Lunaire 15 years later. Today, spoken text with musical accompaniment is most recognizable as a foreshadowing of the modern cinematic soundtrack. Calico elaborates on the melodrama genre, and Enoch Arden’s place in that tradition, in her pre-concert talk.