Pleading (Elgar)
"Pleading" is a poem written by Arthur L. Salmon, and set to music by the English composer Edward Elgar in 1908, as his Op.48.
This is one of the most popular of Elgar's songs, and it was originally written for voice with piano accompaniment. It was so successful that Elgar soon scored the accompaniment for orchestra. He wrote the song for his great friend Lady Maud Warrender, and it was dedicated to her.
Lyrics
PLEADING
- Will you come homeward from the hills of Dreamland,
- Home in the dusk, and speak to me again?
- Tell me the stories that I am forgetting,
- Quicken my hopes, and recompense my pain?
- Will you come homeward from the hills of Dreamland?
- I have grown weary, though I wait for you yet;
- Watching the fallen leaf, the faith grown fainter,
- The memory smoulder’d to a dull regret.
- Shall the remembrance die in dim forgetting–
- All the fond light that glorified my way?
- Will you come homeward from the hills of Dreamland,
- Home in the dusk, and turn my night to day?
Recordings
- Songs and Piano Music by Edward Elgar has "Pleading" performed by Mark Wilde (tenor), with David Owen Norris (piano).
- Elgar: Complete Songs for Voice & Piano Amanda Roocroft (soprano), Reinild Mees (piano)
- Elgar: The Collector's Edition, CD 29 Robert Tear (tenor), City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Vernon Handley (conductor)
References
- Michael Kennedy, Portrait of Elgar (Oxford University Press, 1968) ISBN 0193154145