Oh Promise Me is a song with music by Reginald De Koven

Reginald de Koven

Henry Louis Reginald De Koven was an American music critic and prolific composer, particularly of comic operas.-Biography:...

 and lyrics by Clement Scott

Clement Scott

Clement Scott was an influential English theatre critic for the Daily Telegraph, and a playwright and travel writer, in the final decades of the 19th century...

. The song was written in 1887 and first published in 1889 as an art song

Art song

An art song is a vocal music composition, usually written for one voice with piano or orchestral accompaniment. By extension, the term "art song" is used to refer to the genre of such songs....

. De Koven may have based the melody partly on an aria by Stanislao Gastaldon

Stanislao Gastaldon

Martino Stanislao Luigi Gastaldon was an Italian composer, primarily of salon songs for solo voice and piano. However, he also composed instrumental music, two choral works, and four operas. Today, he is remembered almost exclusively for his 1881 song "Musica proibita" , still one of the most...

, "Musica Proibita". In 1890, De Koven wrote his most successful comic opera

Comic opera

Comic opera denotes a sung dramatic work of a light or comic nature, usually with a happy ending.Forms of comic opera first developed in late 17th-century Italy. By the 1730s, a new operatic genre, opera buffa, emerged as an alternative to opera seria...

, Robin Hood

Robin Hood (comic opera)

Robin Hood is a comic opera by Reginald De Koven , Harry B. Smith and Clement Scott . The story is based on the Robin Hood legend, during the reign of King Richard I . The opera was composed in Chicago, Illinois during the winter of 1888-1889.Robin Hood was first performed at the Chicago Opera...

. After opening night, the contralto

Contralto

Contralto is the deepest female classical singing voice, with the lowest tessitura, falling between tenor and mezzo-soprano. It typically ranges between the F below middle C to the second G above middle C , although at the extremes some voices can reach the E below middle C or the second B above...

 playing Alan-a-Dale

Alan-a-Dale

Alan-a-Dale is a figure in the Robin Hood legend...

, Jessie Bartlett Davis

Jessie Bartlett Davis

Jessie Bartlett Davis was an American operatic singer and actress from Morris, Illinois, who was billed as "America's Representative Contralto".-Opera and acting:...

, demanded a song to better show off her voice, threatening to walk out of the production. De Koven inserted "Oh Promise Me" into the score for her.

The sheet music sold over a million copies in 1890 and continued to gain popularity for several decades, being performed by many artists. The song remains popular as a wedding song both in America and in the UK.

Lyrics

Oh, promise me that someday you and I
Will take our love together to some sky
Where we can be alone and faith renew,
And find the hollows where those flowers grew,
Those first sweet violets of early spring,
Which come in whispers, thrill us both, and sing
Of love unspeakable that is to be;
Oh, promise me! Oh, promise me!

Oh, promise me that you will take my hand,
The most unworthy in this lonely land,
And let me sit beside you in your eyes,
Seeing the vision of our paradise,
Hearing God's message while the organ rolls
Its mighty music to our very souls,
No love less perfect than a life with thee;
Oh, promise me! Oh, promise me!

External Links

• Sheet Music for "Oh promise me", G. Schirmer, Inc., 1889.