The story of St. Cecilia and why she is the patron saint of music isn’t an easy one to hear considering that music is one of the fine arts that are supposed to uplift the human psyche.
She was born in Rome in the early part of the 3rd century to a wealthy family. At some point, Cecilia converted to Christianity and vowed to remain a virgin. Her parents ignored her wishes and forced her into a marriage with Valerian, the son of another wealthy family. It is said that during her wedding, as musicians played, Cecilia “sang to God in her heart.” It was this connection to music that tied her to music and musicians.
On their wedding night, Cecilia told Valerius about her conversion to Christianity and her vow of virginity. Valerius respected her vow, learned about this religion, and later converted to Christianity as well. His brother Tiburtius also converted, and the two dedicated themselves to burying Christian martyrs, which was forbidden at the time. They were later arrested and sentenced to death for refusing to renounce their religion.
Cecilia continued her work both of converting people to Christianity and of burying the Christian dead. She, too, was arrested for disobeying Roman law, and was sentenced to die. One account has her being burned alive, but her body didn’t succumb. It is said that when she still was alive three days later, she was sentenced to having her head cut off. Buoyed by her faith, Cecilia was brave and continued preaching to those who came to visit her up until the end.
While the year she was proclaimed a saint is not known, her name appears in Pope Gelasius’s book from 496 A.D. in which he listed all the Catholic saints. While considered a Catholic saint, she is also venerated in the Orthodox Church, the Anglican Communion, and the Lutheran Church.
Here are some of the musical pieces written in her honor.
Purcell: Hail, Bright Cecilia!
A group of musicians and music lovers known as the Musical Society of London began annual celebrations of St. Cecilia’s Feast Day in 1683. Henry Purcell wrote nine pieces for the group over the years. His Hail, Bright Cecilia! of 1692 is the best known. The music is set to the text by Nicholas Brady which was based on the 1687 poem by John Dryden, "A Song for St. Cecilia’s Day." The Gabriel Consort & Players are conducted by Paul McCreesh:
One of the airs included in the piece, “Wondrous Machine,” implies that St. Cecilia herself invented the organ!
Handel: An Ode for St. Cecilia’s Day
A little over 40 years later, Handel also set to music the John Dryden poem that Purcell had used. The poem amplified Pythagoras’s “harmonia mundi” theory, that the earth and all celestial bodies in motion vibrate with sound that the human soul can hear. The cantata was premiered in London in 1739. Here, John Butt conducts the Dunedin Consort:
Haydn: St. Cecilia Mass
There is a bit of mystery surrounding Haydn’s Missa Sanctae Caeciliae (St. Cecilia Mass). What is known is that he wrote a Mass in 1766 after he was promoted to Kapellmeister in the Esterházy court. The original full title is Missa cellensis in honorem Beatissimae Virginis Mariae, which translates to a “Mass in honor of the Virgin Mary.” The mystery is how it also became known as the St. Cecilia Mass. One theory is that the Mass was performed one year on the St. Cecilia feast day and the name stuck. Another posits that the title changed in the 19th century, possibly because of a performance in St. Cecilia Church. The name stays to this day. Here’s a performance of the "Kyrie" by the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, led by Rafael Kubelik:
Interesting to note that the original copy burned in a fire, and Haydn had to reconstruct the work from memory in 1773.
Gounod: St. Cecilia Mass
Although French composer Charles Gounod had pieces performed in public as early as 1841, it was his 1855 Messe solennelle en l’honneur de Sainte-Cecile (St. Cecilia Mass) that is considered his first major work. It was premiered that year on St. Cecilia’s feast day. Jesús López-Cobos conducts the orchestra and choir of RTVE:
Although the Mass received critical acclaim, Gounod revised it several times right up until 1874.
Britten: Hymn to St. Cecilia
Benjamin Britten had wanted to write something to honor St. Cecilia for a long time, partly because she was known as the patron saint of music and musicians, but also because he was born on her feast day. While a diary entry indicates that he had begun research in 1935, it was a meeting with the British-American poet W.H. Auden that got the project on track. The two met in 1940 and Britten asked Auden to write a text in honor of St. Cecilia, which later became known as “Anthem for St. Cecilia’s Day (for Benjamin Britten)”
This performance by Voces8 is one of my favorites:
Fun fact: Britten decided to leave the U.S. and head home to England in 1942 during World War II. Customs inspectors confiscated his music, concerned it might be some kind of code. He had to re-write the whole piece from memory on his voyage back to England. Later that year the piece was premiered in a radio performance.
Howells: A Hymn for St. Cecilia
In 1959-60, the Livery Club of the Worshipful Company of Musicians, a group that at one time had control over all musical performances in London, commissioned a piece to honor Herbert Howells’s leadership of the Company. He composed a three-verse hymn based on a poem by Ursula Vaughan Williams in honor of St. Cecilia. And here is the St. Clement’s Choir, led by Peter Richard Conte:
It was premiered on St. Cecilia’s Day at St. Paul’s Cathedral in London, in 1961.
Pärt: Cecilia, vergine romana
Estonian composer Arvo Pärt was commissioned to write something to mark the Jubilee of Rome (the “Great Jubilee”) of 2000 by the group in charge of planning. Pärt chose to honor St. Cecilia, and titled the piece Cecilia, vergine romana, (Cecilia, Roman virgin). He constructed the piece around a description of her life that was found at the seminary in Graz, Austria. This video is from a 2013 performance with Kristjan Järvi conducting the National Orchestra of France
The work was dedicated to both conductor Myung-Whun Chung and the St. Cecilia choir and orchestra of the National Academy in Rome, who performed its premiere.
CODA: There are estimated to be more than 2,000 paintings, poems, and pieces of music inspired by St. Cecilia. Since the first two pieces in this blog were based on John Dryden’s poem, I thought you might like to read it.
A Song for St. Cecilia’s Day
John Dryden 1631–1700
From harmony, from heavenly harmony,
This universal frame began:
When nature underneath a heap
Of jarring atoms lay,
And could not heave her head,
The tuneful voice was heard from high,
Arise, ye more than dead!’
Then cold, and hot, and moist, and dry,
In order to their stations leap,
And Music’s power obey.
From harmony, from heavenly harmony,
This universal frame began:
From harmony to harmony
Through all the compass of the notes it ran,
The diapason closing full in Man.
What passion cannot Music raise and quell?
When Jubal struck the chorded shell,
His listening brethren stood around,
And, wondering, on their faces fell
To worship that celestial sound:
Less than a God they thought there could not dwell
Within the hollow of that shell
That spoke so sweetly, and so well.
What passion cannot Music raise and quell?
The trumpet’s loud clangour
Excites us to arms,
With shrill notes of anger,
And mortal alarms.
The double double double beat
Of the thundering drum
Cries Hark! the foes come;
Charge, charge, 'tis too late to retreat!
The soft complaining flute,
In dying notes, discovers
The woes of hopeless lovers,
Whose dirge is whisper'd by the warbling lute.
Sharp violins proclaim
Their jealous pangs and desperation,
Fury, frantic indignation,
Depth of pains, and height of passion,
For the fair, disdainful dame.
But O, what art can teach,
What human voice can reach,
The sacred organ’s praise?
Notes inspiring holy love,
Notes that wing their heavenly way
To mend the choirs above.
Orpheus could lead the savage race;
And trees unrooted left their place,
Sequacious of the lyre;
But bright Cecilia rais’d the wonder higher:
When to her organ vocal breath was given,
An angel heard, and straight appear’d
Mistaking Earth for Heaven.
As from the power of sacred lays
The spheres began to move,
And sung the great Creator’s praise
To all the Blest above;
So when the last and dreadful hour
This crumbling pageant shall devour,
The trumpet shall be heard on high,
The dead shall live, the living die,
And Music shall untune the sky!
