Three composers outline the steps of an evocative musical journey. Apulia was a real second home for the “candid” Nino Rota (Milan, 1911 - Rome, 1979), by virtue of the teaching experience at the Liceo musicale in Taranto and then in Bari, who directed from 1949 to 1977. Under the aegis of Alfredo Casella, Ildebrando Pizzetti, Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco, Fritz Reiner and Rosario Scalerò, Rota developed his own aesthetic creed, far from the most corrosive aspects of the second half of the 20th century musical language. Indisputably, «[Rota] is the most “musical” of the musicians. I mean that he lives “only” in music and he is happy there alone» (Alberto Savinio). Snug in this happiness as a nut in its shell, he wrote the Sonata in D major for clarinet and piano in 1945 and the Trio for clarinet, cello and piano in 1973, two works that gladly indulge in the cheerful light of a melodic freshening sluice and in a seductive melodiousness, where fits of sprightly ironic malice coexist with moments of languid melancholy. Our journey continues with Raffaele Gervasio (Bari, 1910 - Rome, 1994), a pupil of the pianist Italo Delle Cese and the violinist Gioconda De Vito (Bari) and then of Ottorino Respighi (Rome). One of the most interesting Apulian composers of the last century, Gervasio has worked closely for radio, theatre, cinema and television. Rota invited him to teach Composition at Conservatory of Bari (1967). In addition, Gervasio directed the Conservatory of Matera from 1969. Capitoli op. 132 (1994) is the result of seven movements juxtaposed (Andantino, Allegro, Andante, Scorrevole, Andante mosso, Allegro, Andante mosso) where the clarinet, piano and cello trigger a game of tensions and distensions, shaping a fascinating dialogue dappled by intermittent imaginative oneiricism. Tied to tradition but projected towards the future, Teresa Procaccini (1934) builds her musical idiom on the fidelity to formal classical values and, at the same time, new sounds possibilities. The youthful Sonata rapsodica for cello and piano op. 8 (1957) is characterized by dramatic atmosphere and vibrant restlessness, emphasized with extraordinary poetry. A tripartite first movement (Adagio, Andante, Presto), particularly desultory and rhapsodic, seems to linger in giving substance to something under-said and oversung, before the euphoric Allegro vivace, swift blazing. The Trio for clarinet, cello and piano op. 36 (1968) doesn’t get far away the “tradition of the new”, woven from a melodic lyricism that opens out in ample lines.