Edward Elgar - My love dwelt in a northern land

Edward Elgar (1857 - 1934):
MY LOVE DWELT IN A NORTHERN LAND

Sir Edward William Elgar was an English composer. He is known for such works as the Enigma Variations, the Pomp and Circumstance Marches, The Dream of Gerontius, concertos for violin and cello, and two symphonies. He also composed oratorios, chamber music and songs. He was appointed Master of the King's Musick in 1924.

Elgar wrote a significant body of songs - approximately one hundred in all. Around one half of these are part songs of great delicacy, beauty and inventiveness. The majority were written for unaccompanied voices. He composed them throughout his working life, often, it seems, almost as a form of relaxation while working on large-scale pieces or on holiday. 'My Love Dwelt' was written in 1889, shortly after his marriage to Caroline Alice Roberts. Together with 'O happy Eyes' and 'Love' (the latter being composed many years later), it forms his 'Three part-songs, Opus 18'.

My love dwelt in a northern land
A dim tower in a forest green
Was his, and far away the sand,
And gray wash of the waves were seen,
The woven forest boughs between.

And through the northern summer night
The sunset slowly died away,
And herds of strange deer, silver white,
Came gleaming through the forest gray,
And fled like ghosts before the day.

And oft, that month, we watch'd the moon
Wax great and white o'er wood and lawn,
And wane, with waning of the June,
Till, like a brand for battle drawn,
She fell, and flamed in a wild dawn.

I know not if the forest green
Still girdles round that castle gray,
I know not if, the boughs between,
The white deer vanish ere the day.
The grass above my love is green,
His heart is colder than the clay.

(Andrew Lang, with minor changes by Elgar)

The Finzi Singers
Conducted by Paul Spicer