The lyric pieces composed by Fano at the beginning of the 20th century, including Passa la nave mia and Vere novo, exhibit significant developments compared to the collections from the earlier period: the choice of texts by the great Italian poets (Boccaccio, Carducci, Pascoli), the increased complexity of the piano accompaniment and harmonic structure, and the sometimes jagged character of the vocal line.
Ad Annie belongs instead to an entirely different context: with a freer and more open form, it was written in 1945 during the period spent in hiding in Assisi to escape the Nazi deportations.