In 2024, before the summer of the northern hemisphere, I was invited to conduct a concert-tribute to Saint Mother Teresa of Calcutta to take place in Carnegie Hall, with the Orchestra of Saint Luke’s. The programme, aiming to portray her geographical  journey through the world, consisted of music related to India, Albania, Ireland and New York. Her Belfast (Northern Ireland) roots were represented by the famous poem written by William Butler Yeats, set to music by Herbert Hughes to the traditional air “The Maids of the Mourne Shore”.

Initially thought as an interlude played as a break for the two singer soloists (Catherine Wethington, soprano, and Sean Michel Plumb, baritone), I realized that a version for voice and orchestra would be more meaningful, and thus I offered then to write an arrangement for Ms Wethington. I chose the known version in D flat, and orchestrated the piece for a flute, an alto flute, strings, harp, celesta, glockenspiel, chimes, and a bodhran (traditional Irish drum).

The piece is structured as a prelude followed by the stanzas – separated once by a short interlude – and a coda. Whereas the vocal line follows the known traditional pattern without modulations or variations, the melody is enhanced by embellishments, appoggiaturas, and passing notes that intend to create a light and idiomatically folk style. The writing for the two flutes exhibits similar treatment when leading the interlude: they play the main theme at an interval of an ‘imprecise’ octave, as the interval sounds ‘muffled’ by the abundance of grace notes.

The general harmonic scheme belongs to a tonal-centered discourse albeit extended by some 9th chords. The prelude exposes an original motif based on a descending semitone, which later will be applied to the vocal line in the coda. Thus the last line “But I was young and foolish, and now am full of tears” ends with a ‘piangendo’ indication (Italian for ‘crying’) where the soloist must portray the melancholic air at the end of the piece.