Some driving themes remain, which communicate everything or almost everything which Padre Pio may feel or live: the wound and blood, prayer and miracle, God's mercy, the divine majesty, the Eucharist. Save Padre Pio, only the Man in Black possesses an initial outline which is appropriate for him.
Thèmes and Leitmotivs
I tried to avoid an eventual systematization, with time, a sort of Pavlov reflex: a particular music for every event, thought or situation, a psychological packaged piece which musical composers for films have abused; a sort of "ready-to-think or feel" delivered in the music.
For the first theme (which is Padre Pio's first theme), I wanted to compose something simple, emanating a feeling of peace, interiority, but which is also compatible with the expression of a contained and continual suffering. I made the best use of two Gregorian chants; I use them as the theme's foundations which they later carry. I chose initial tones of A flat and E major for them, with which I try hard to switch alternately from a melancholic emotion to a bit of rough reality (The Man in Black sings often in E major but also takes the tones of Padre Pio when he speaks about him). Some of the other quoted subjects are borrowed from my symphonic "La Lance et le Sang" (“Lance and Blood”), a kind of small first draft of this opera.
