Your events at Classical Events
Details
Clothworkers Centenary Concert Hall
The School of Music
University of Leeds
Leeds
LS2 9JT
England
Tickets
Prices: Free or pay as you feel
Book Tickets
Programme
Richard Strauss – Enoch Arden, Op.38
Performers
Barry McGovern – voice
Annette Cleary – Cello
Reamonn Keary – piano
Other concerts in this Series (+)
Programme Note
Tennyson’s epic poem Enoch Arden tells the tale of a sailor who embarks on a voyage in order to provide for his wife and children. He is shipwrecked, not unlike the character of Robinson Crusoe, and returns home many years later to find that his wife is re-married to a childhood friend and rival. Richard Strauss’s melodramatic setting of the poem was hugely successful in its day. Composed for the distinguished actor and director Ernst von Possart, whose influence helped Strauss secure the job of chief conductor of the Munich Court Opera, the pair toured Germany with the piece in 1897 to great acclaim. Annette Cleary and Réamonn Keary have reworked the original piano score, enriching the music with the addition of the cello. Strauss was simultaneously writing the cello-dominated tone poem Don Quixote at the time of composing Enoch Arden and the cello fits very naturally into the musical texture of the melodrama. The renowned actor Barry McGovern brings the Victorian narrative to life with characteristic dramatic aplomb.
Annette Cleary and Réamonn Keary have been performing as a cello and piano duo for several years. In addition to exploring the standard repertoire they also specialise in rediscovering works that have unfairly fallen into obscurity, in particular works by female composers. In 2018, in the first Sounding the Feminists series at the NCH, they performed a cello sonata by the much-neglected Leokadiya Kashperova, and in a concert in August 2020 in Berlin they resurrected from obscurity the wonderful sonata by Melanie Bonis. Recently they arranged the Rita Strohl cello sonata to include narrator Barry McGovern with commissioned text by poet Josephine Collins. Annette and Réamonn also enjoy arranging songs for their combination of instruments; past performances have included arrangements of songs and works by Rachmaninoff, Tchaikovsky, Richard Strauss, Fauré and Poulenc.
