Indian-American composer Reena Esmail (b. 1983) originally wrote Rosa De Sal for soprano and piano, using text from Chilean poet-diplomat Pablo Neurda’s Sonnet XVII. Esmail is known for interweaving raag with traditional Western orchestral colors. A raag is a melodic framework in Indian classical music, used for improvisation and evoking specific emotions in the listener. The word originates from the Sanskrit word for “color,” meaning it “colors the mind” with feelings like joy, sadness, devotion, or romance. Each raag has a unique set of rules and melodic structures, often associated with a particular time of day or season, and forms the basis for improvisation in the music. This version for trumpet and orchestra was commissioned by Mary Elizabeth Bowden, and premiered in 2023.

In Esmail’s own words, “The poetry of Neruda is at once so direct and so subtle. How better to capture the beautiful, intimate, subtle sensation of loving another person? The sensation of the poem led me to a setting based on the Hindustani raag of Puriya Dhanashree — which is also dark and longing, which reaches out past those quotidian comforts into the vast complexity of desire. I could say more — but the text says it better than I ever could:”

Sonnet XVII
Pablo Neruda
Translated by Stephen Taspcott

I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,
or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that never blooms
but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;
thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,
risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.
I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;
so I love you because I know no other way

that this: where I does not exist, nor you,
so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,
so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.