Alfred, Lord Tennyson published Enoch Arden in 1864, during his tenure as England's poet laureate. The poem follows a fisherman-turned-sailor who, stranded at sea and presumed dead, returns home to find his wife remarried — a story so resonant it gave its name to the legal doctrine permitting remarriage after a spouse's prolonged disappearance.

Richard Strauss set the poem as a melodrama for speaker and piano in 1897, weaving music and spoken word into a single, unbroken emotional arc. This performance presents Strauss’ work in a new transcription for string trio by cellist Molly von Gutzeit, whose arrangement draws the music into closer conversation with the verse. WBJC-91.5 FM host Judith Krummeck speaks the poem in its original English.

• Judith Krummeck, narration

• Nikita Borisevich, violin

• Benjamin von Gutzeit, viola

• Molly von Gutzeit, cello