This last movement of my 16th Symphony sets one of Miquel Costa i Llobera’s most demanding poems. It is in praise of the Roman poet Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus 65 - 8 BC) I am assured by several Mallorquin friends that its meaning is very obscure even in its original language. My setting is gentle and good humoured, sometimes going so far over the top that it comes down the other side! Somewhere approaching the end I learned that my wife, who has had perfect health all her life, has been diagnosed as having Motor Neuron Disease (Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis) with a very reduced life expectancy (Stephen Hawking is one of the disease’s longest survivors). In spite of this I hope that I have been able to keep up the good humour that the ending was always intended to have.