Symphony No. 11 "Philemon and Baucis" (1997)

I. The Search
II. Miracles
III. Death and Transfiguration

Ovid’s mythological story Philemon and Baucis was the subject for an orchestral commission for the 47 International Passau Festival. It is also known as The Miraculous Pitcher in the Nathaniel Hawthorne version. Two Greek gods set out in a town to find kind, honest people… Disguised in rags they are stoned and beaten by the towns people until they come to a poor shack of Philemon and Baucis and are treated warmly by an elderly couple. The gods take off their tattered clothes and reveal their identity. They reward the kind elderly couple not only with wealth, but everlasting life by becoming trees that entertain after their life is over.

The music composed for this symphony is not programmatic, but rather, I used conceptual ideas suggested to me by the story itself: searching, compassion, and ‘the final gesture’. In the first movement, The Search, are two motives that not only are in two separate tempi, but they also change velocity as in a race. At the end of the movement, the two musical lines finally meet. The story for me has universal religious aspects. While a guest at Yaddo, a New York artists’ colony, I was able to compose most of this symphony. In my room was a small bookcase with a hymnal from 1855. I decided to use whatever hymn appeared on the page when I opened the book. To my surprise, it was an early version of Amazing Grace. Although the melody is slanted when used, one can still recognize it.

Gloria Coates