University of York Music Press

The piece is based Based on a folk song which originates from Southern Italy, in Calabria, where an Albanian community has lived for more than 500 years and so has the song! The tenderness of the melodic lines expresses the love for the distant homeland, which according to legend can be seen from the Calabrian mountaintops.

As the composer writes in the programme note ‘As in most folk songs, this tune is remarkably short. The melody itself has not been altered, but has been extended, enriched in texture and presented in different ways. Melodic lines serve as a point of departure for the proliferation of a distinct harmonic vocabulary’.

Here is a video excerpt of the live performance.