“Composed in celebration of a storied career on behalf of Susan Ihnen, the accompanist at Valley High School in West Des Moines, Iowa, for twenty-five years. This skilled young composer has managed to write music that is so sublime that it transcends its intended first use and becomes universal. The Christina Rossetti text beautifully personifies the concept of memory, sometimes coming back to you in dreams. Gilded with a sonorous piano accompaniment, this is a piece that will be deeply appreciated by any students of music, whether they be advanced high school singers or a group of professionals.”

Echo

About the Piece

Come to me in the silence of the night;

Come in the speaking silence of a dream;

Come with soft rounded cheeks and eyes as bright

   As sunlight on a stream;

      Come back in tears,

O memory, hope, love of finished years.

Oh dream how sweet, too sweet, too bitter sweet,

   Whose wakening should have been in Paradise,

Where souls brimfull of love abide and meet;

   Where thirsting longing eyes

      Watch the slow door

That opening, letting in, lets out no more.

Yet come to me in dreams, that I may live

   My very life again tho’ cold in death:

Come back to me in dreams, that I may give

   Pulse for pulse, breath for breath:

      Speak low, lean low,

As long ago, my love, how long ago.

Christina Rossetti

The Text