Enoch Arden - Ripley/Bowles
Catalog Number: J127

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ARTISTS
Chad R. Bowles, PIANIST
David Ripley, SPEAKER
 
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In his second recording for JRI, American pianist Chad R. Bowles joins forces with Bass-Baritone David Ripley in Richard Strauss' epic masterpiece, Enoch Arden. Neglected for many years, this score brings Tennyson's writing to life masterfully, while Ripley and Bowles unite their communicative forces in a reading which will leave you deeply moved. 
 
"The most important thing for a speaker of Enoch Arden to do is to take the proceedings deadly seriously, which is what David Ripley does. He’s a fine actor, with a strong presence, and manages to bring great feeling to the many dramatic—in fact, melodramatic, in the other sense of the word—passages. Pianist Chad R. Bowles has less to do than Mr. Ripley but does it well. His pianism is strong, fluent, nicely nuanced." AUDIOPHILE AUDITION

"The present version comes as close as any to the effect I would imagine the work would have had on late nineteenth century audiences...when performed with sincerity and vigour as it is here it is no mere curiosity." MUSICWEB INTERNATIONAL

"...further proof of this melodrama's apparently inexhaustible appeal." WORLD MAGAZINE

"Strauss has managed to capture the quiet nobility of the poem and spirit of the age...Ripley presents it well, highlighting the drama without over-sentimentalizing, so often a risk, then and now, with late Victorian works...The piano accompaniment seems better suited, in its greater subtlety and salon intimacy, to this story of domestic life than an orchestral one...The booklet contains a fine essay by Ripley, with leitmotifs reproduced...the recorded sound is good." CLASSICAL VOICE OF NORTH CAROLINA

"Bass baritone David Ripley's voice is clean, majestic, and as one would expect, very appropriately theatrical in this unusual work. Pianist Chad R. Bowles accompanies him (though with a minimum of music, as Strauss chose not to score the work very fully) with perfect Straussian emotion full of sensitivity, delicacy, and passion … This is a most interesting work that Strauss lovers would enjoy listening to, performed by two fine artists." ALLMUSIC GUIDE