Symphony No. 14 "The American Symphony" (2001)

I. Lamentation: Homage to Supply Belcher (1750–1836)
II. Meditation: Homage to William Billings (1746–1800)
III. Liberation: Homage to Otto Luening (1900–1996)

Having received a commission to compose a work for the Munich Chamber Orchestra in the year 2000, I decided to pay homage to the musical roots of American music with fragments of songs written by Supply Belcher and William Billings.   

Supply Belcher, born in Stroughton, Massachusetts in 1750, earned his living in various trades; tax assessor, school-master, justice of the peace, and other jobs while being a composer. One of his compositions sounded so much like the chorus in Handel's Messiah that a music critic dubbed him 'The Handel of Maine'. The first movement, Lamentation, is a mirror canon of glissandi. Woven into the canon are the tones taken from Supply Belcher’s Lamentation. It flickers through like a ghost from the past. 

William Billings was also a well-known composer of the early New England School whose choruses would almost shake the churches where they were sung. His progressive composition style was sometimes criticized, and in answer to a critic he wrote his famous song Jargon: 

Let horrid Jargon split the sir
And rive the Nerves asunder,
Let hateful Discord greet the Ear,
As terrible as Thunder.

This poem which Billings penned, he couched in extreme dissonance of his day as a practical joke. In Meditation I have set Jargon in an early structure from Symphony No. 1 and repeated his angular song in quarter-tones. 

The last movement Liberation is dedicated to Otto Luening, a major figure in American music of the 20th century. He was not only a founder of electronic music but also of many organizations that help the American composer such as The American Music Center or American Composers Orchestra. The music of this last movement has a musical quote from Symphony No. 5 in which I use many parallel fifth chords. This interval was often used in the early hymn tunes of the New England School, and then disappeared from usage.   

Commissioned by the Munich Chamber Orchestra and first performed at the Herkulessaal of the Residence, Munich, on October 23, 2003 conducted by Christoph Poppen. 

Gloria Coates