St Cecilia
On 22 November 1739, Handel opened his concert season at Rich’s theatre (Lincoln’s Inn Fields) in London with performances of his newly-composed Ode to St Cecilia and Alexander’s Feast. Both are settings of odes by John Dryden written to celebrate the feast day of St Cecilia. As it turned out, invoking the patron saint of music could not prevent what was to be a difficult season for the arts in London: England was soon at war with Spain and an especially harsh winter, during which the river Thames was frozen over, led to many theatres being temporarily closed.
Handel’s new odes however received many more London performances and, alongside works by Henry Purcell, are among the most outstanding musical contributions to a tradition of Cecilian Festivals across England and Scotland in the 17th- and 18th-centuries.
But how did Cecilia come to be patron saint of music and musicians?
A saint and martyr of the early Christian church, Cecilia’s history is uncertain. Like many martyrs, there are accounts of a gruesome death. There was first an attempt to suffocate her by steam in the bath of her own home followed by an attempt to behead her. Three strokes of the axe failed to sever her head and she lived painfully on for three days during which time she gave over her house for use as a church.
The Acts of St Cecilia, which set out the basis for her canonisation, date from around 500 AD and tell of her commitment to ‘perpetual virginity’. Nonetheless, she was betrothed to a young nobleman, Valerian, whom she converted (along with his brother Tiburtius) to Christianity. All three were subsequently martyred.
At this stage, there is no association between Cecilia and music. The only reference to music comes in an account of the wedding in the Acts: ‘The day on which the wedding was to be held arrived and while musical instruments were playing she was singing in her heart to God alone saying “Make my heart and my body pure that I be not confounded”.’
Over a thousand years later, in the late 15th-century, Cecilia is seemingly suddenly declared by various musicians’ guilds as the patron of music and is depicted in a number of paintings singing and playing the organ. One explanation for this development is that the vespers antiphon ‘Cantantibus organis, Caecilia Domino’ which would have been familiar at the time excludes the words ‘in corde suo’ (in her heart) from the Acts account of the wedding leading to the misinterpretation that Cecilia herself was actually singing.
Whatever the reason, the practice of celebrating St Cecilia as the patron saint of music on 22 November became common and many associations were set up for the purpose. The first known association, called ‘Le Puy de musique’, was established in 1570 at Evreux, Normandy, and involved various liturgical performances and a banquet after mass.
It was over a century later before a similar organisation was regularly established in England. In 1683, the Musical Society initiated a series of annual celebrations in London: a service (usually at St Bride’s, Fleet Street) was followed by a specially composed ode and a musical entertainment (often at Stationers’ Hall).
These meetings were held every year (except 1686, 1688 and 1689) until 1703 and it was during this period that John Dryden wrote his two odes to St Cecilia (1687 and 1697) which Handel later set to music. Thereafter, such meetings were occasional but had spread throughout England and Scotland to cities such as Oxford, Winchester, Salisbury, Gloucester and Edinburgh.
Although AAM itself is not celebrating St Cecilia’s day with a live performance this year [2001], you can join us in spirit by raising a glass to this patron saint of all music-lovers.