St. Cecilia's Day

Greetings, my dear Cecilians!

I'm about three days early, but I'm calling it close enough for a little tribute to my favorite saint: Cecilia, patron saint of music.

She's really my favorite because of this poem by W.H. Auden, which he wrote for my beloved Benjamin Britten, who was born on Nov. 22, St. Cecilia's Day.  Britten turned around and composed a three-movement choral setting for the poem called "Hymn to St. Cecilia" -- you can listen to a recording here.  Normally I might say something critical about the recording (and I'm definitely keeping my own counsel about tempi....particularly in mvt. 3), but this piece is SO difficult that it seems hopelessly uncharitable to find fault.

The story of St. Cecilia is referenced in Auden's poem, but not related in any readily identifiable form, so I'll give you all the concise version:

First, there's Cecilia, a first-century (C.E.) Roman convert to Christianity, daughter of member of the Roman aristocracy.  Her pagan father decides to marry her off to Valerian, another pagan nobleman.  Well, this is a big problem for Cecilia, since she's made a vow of chastity (sort of like how I've made a vow of solfa....ok, maybe it's not the same...), so at her wedding, she's pretty upset.  She's so upset, in fact, that the fervency of her silent prayer for deliverance from this situation became audible to other people as music.  It is from this part of the story that her connection with music is made -- our Cecilia was evidently so good at audiation that she could make other people hear it, too (Kidding...kind of....)! Later depictions of St. Cecilia with an organ (like this famous one) actually result from a mistranslation of the original Latin telling of the story -- the word "organis" was used in the story to indicate that Cecilia was praying in her heart, but later, people decided that it meant she was using a musical instrument, and even credited her with the invention of the organ.

Anyhow, after the wedding, she and Valerian had a very serious talk about what was and was not going to be happening that night, and Valerian went out to get some air along the Via Appia, and ran into this guy Urban (later to become Pope Urban) who sent him home.  When he got home, he saw the angel who Cecilia had said was there to guard her and her virtue, and Valerian converted on the spot (I mean, wouldn't you?).  So, then Valerian tells his brother about all this, and his brother also converts, and then they start spending their days burying the bodies of Christian martyrs.  Now, burying the bodies of martyrs was illegal, and Valerian and his brother eventually got caught and martyred themselves.  Well, Cecilia went out and found their bodies, buried them, and was also caught and condemned to death.  However, it wasn't considered genteel to execute women in quite the same way, so they did what any civilized society would do -- they decided to suffocate Cecilia to death in her bathroom by closing it up and stoking up the furnace until she asphyxiated.  Well, Cecilia didn't die for three days, so the Romans thought to themselves, "To heck with the genteel way!"  They sent a guy in with an axe to behead poor Cecilia, but there was a law that a beheader could only strike the beheadee three times, and evidently this axe guy didn't eat his spinach, because that didn't kill Cecilia either.  The poor thing lived three MORE days, preaching and healing people, and bequeathing all her belongings to the church, and then she finally died.  According to tradition, her remains have never decomposed.

Now, what does all of this have to do with solfa, you ask?  Not a whole lot, to be honest with you, except that Cecilia was the patron saint of music, and as such, a lot of music has been written in her honor -- the Britten is only one example.  These settings have taken on some very interesting forms, and since you all have a bit of a breather coming up this week courtesy of Thanksgiving, I thought you might like to take a very brief tour:

Orlando di Lasso


http://www.mab.jpn.org/musictex/score_lib/ol_cantantibus.pdf

This text is essentially a retelling of the musical part of the story (before all the bloody stuff) -- you see the appearance of the word "organis," and you also see an interesting instruction for the two tenor parts and the bass, who lack pitches for the words "cantantibus organis" - "singing in her heart".  The two parts that sing in the octave of a woman's voice (though the piece would have surely been performed only by men and boys at the time of its composition) do sing those words, and the men are basically told to "sing in their hearts" until it is time for them to enter.  Notice how particular melodic gestures are matched with particular words and how imitation is used -- these are marks of Renaissance polyphony after Josquin -- folks like Ockeghem and Busnoys weren't doing that yet.

Charles Gounod


And you thought he only wrote that "Ave Maria" setting...

http://www2.cpdl.org/wiki/images/9/95/Cecilia6.pdf

This piece comes from Gounod's "St. Cecilia Mass," which is a setting of the mass ordinary.  Notice the texture of the choral parts -- obviously, intelligibility seems to be important to our composer, and this brings up yet another Cecilia connection.  In the 19th century, some Catholic musicians began to be concerned that Gregorian chant was disappearing from masses, and that church music was becoming too complicated, and more concerned with show than with intelligibility and reverence.  So, some composers began dialing back their textural and harmonic palettes in liturgical music and making use of actual chant or chant-like melodies.  This movement is known as the Cecilian Movement -- Anton Bruckner is probably the composer most commonly identified with this movement.  In this "Benedictus," does Gounod use any chromatic pitches?  If so, how do they resolve?  Are there any cadences outside of the home key?  How would you characterize the soprano solo at the beginning of the movement?  Do you think there is something depictive going on there?  Is there possibly more than one interpretation, knowing what you know about chant and St. Cecilia?

Charles Hubert Hastings Parry

http://www2.cpdl.org/wiki/images/8/8c/Descend-Ye_Nine.pdf 

So, Auden was not the first poet to re-tell or reference the Cecilia story in a more secular light.  In the same way that Auden referenced Aphrodite, Alexander Pope (of 18th-century Enlightenment-era fame) connected Cecilia with the nine Muses of Greek mythology.  Parry scores his setting for chorus and organ, which effectively indicates a nod to the Cecilia-organ connection, but also suggests a church venue for performance of the piece, though probably not as part of a liturgy.  Notice what kinds of choral textures Parry uses.  What keys does he visit?  How is the text set?  Does intelligibility seem to be of central concern?

There are many more pieces to discover on this theme -- keep an eye out particularly for Purcell and Dello Joio, and feel free to share your findings!