The piece
Elgar wrote Salut d'amour in 1888 for Caroline Alice Roberts, whom he married the following year; he gave it a French title, the language she loved. Schott published it in 1889 as Liebesgruss and sold it in many versions, for violin, cello or orchestra. The version played here is the one for solo piano, in B flat, published by Schott in 1899 and entered note by note for Noctave from that edition.
The left hand plays an off-beat chord over a held bass, twice a bar: light and even, it carries the tune without covering it. At the start the right hand also plays these chords, on the lower staff, while the left holds the low octave. In the middle, in D flat, the tune is doubled in rolled chords; at the end it comes back two octaves higher, very soft, then fades away pianissimo.
