Ex. 7-9: Nebbie

Composed by Ottorino Respighi (1879–1936) to a poem by Ada Negri (1870–1945), an Italian poet from a working-class background who became one of the first women nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature. According to one account, Respighi composed the melody first and later found Negri's poem, which fit perfectly.

The poem is dark for an Italian song: a solitary figure suffers in a bleak landscape of fog, cawing crows, barren trees, and biting cold. From the grey sky, the moans of the dead call out: "Come! The valley is dark. O sad one, o unloved one — come! Come!"

The poem's text has appeared in Japanese video games: the PC game Hanakisou used the opening stanza in a bonus track, and the song title "Un gemito dell'estinto" (a moan of the dead) — taken directly from this poem — was used as game over music in Shadow Hearts: From the New World.