Upon Silence sets Long-legged Fly a late poem of Yeats which portrays three momentous figures in history absorbed in silent contemplation: Julius Caesar planning a crucial military campaign Helen of Troy as an adolescent in Sparta and Michelangelo painting the Sistine Chapel. The verses are set in a syllabic manner while each successive chorus is set to increasingly lengthy melismas as like the long-legged fly above water the voice hovers above the strings. For Mezzo Soprano with String Ensemble.

Set to by Robert Browning's poem Two In The Campagna and presented to his his daughter Natasha and her husband Paul on their wedding anniversary. Maw's harmonic eloquence and rhythmic fervour crystallize the initial agitation to become a flowing vocal line coloured by the writing for flute viola and harp the words borne aloft like a continuation of the musical idea and resolved into the gentlest of instrumental postludes.Noël Goodwin The Times 6th November 1989