Celebrating Cecilia – November 2025
Program notes by Sanford Dole
Welcome to a new season with Bay Choral Guild, as we continue our mission of “sharing the joy of choral music!”
For variety when planning our seasons, I like to have the fall performances alternate between a December Christmas extravaganza and a non-holiday program the weekend before Thanksgiving. When I realized that our concerts this year were scheduled for the weekend of November 22, I decided to lean into the idea of celebrating Saint Cecilia, the patron saint of musicians, whose canonical feast day falls on that date. November 22 is also Benjamin Britten’s birthday. Thus it is fitting that I have made Britten’s Hymn to St. Cecilia the centerpiece of today’s program. This work is a favorite among choral singers, and many consider it to be one of the masterworks of the 20th-century choral literature. As BCG’s last performance of the Hymn was 23 years ago, it was due for a return engagement! Many on our current roster have not encountered it before so I’m pleased to be introducing it to them, and perhaps to you as well.
St. Cecilia is one of several virgin martyrs commemorated by name in the Canon of the Mass in the Latin Church. She has been venerated for centuries in Catholic, Orthodox, Anglican, and some Lutheran Churches. Cecilia was born in Rome to a wealthy family in the early 3rd century. The details of her life are shrouded in legend. Tradition has it that she converted to Christianity and made a vow of virginity, but her parents forced her into marriage with a pagan nobleman named Valerian. During their wedding, Cecilia sat apart and “sang to God in her heart” as the musicians played. For that, she was later declared patron of music and musicians. When the time came for her marriage to be consummated, Cecilia told Valerian that watching over her was an angel of the Lord, who would punish him if he sexually violated her but would love him if he respected her virginity. When Valerian asked to see the angel, Cecilia told him to go to the third milestone on the Via Appia and be baptized by Pope Urban I. After following Cecilia’s advice, he saw the angel standing beside her, crowning her with roses and lilies. Soon thereafter, Valerian’s brother Tiburtius also converted, and both were soon arrested at the hand of Turcius Almachius, the prefect of Rome, and martyred when they refused to deny their faith. Through Cecilia’s preaching of Christianity, she converted four hundred people, which led to her also being arrested. Wishing to avoid the public execution of a member of a distinguished family, Almachius attempted to have her killed by suffocating heat and steam in a bathhouse, but she allegedly barely broke a sweat. Many versions of the legend say that three attempts were then made to behead her with a sword, and yet she lived through each one until succumbing to her injuries three days later, though not before preaching to the crowds who gathered and asking the pope to make her home a church.
Musicians of all stripes, especially organists (as she is said to have invented the organ, although there is no proof of this), have celebrated her throughout the intervening centuries. There are over 2,000 known works of art depicting St. Cecilia, including paintings, sculptures, stained glass windows, operas, poems, and novels. In the years 1683–1703 a citywide Saint Cecilia's Day festival was held in London every November 22. It was during this period that John Dryden wrote two odes that were used as libretti for these festivals: Alexander’s Feast, or the power of Music, and three years later, A Song for St. Cecilia’s Day. This latter ode provided the text for three of the composers on our program, and it has been set by many others as well. You may even recall that one Sanford Dole created a complete setting of Dryden’s ode, premiered by BCG in 2022.
For variety when planning our seasons, I like to have the fall performances alternate between a December Christmas extravaganza and a non-holiday program the weekend before Thanksgiving. When I realized that our concerts this year were scheduled for the weekend of November 22, I decided to lean into the idea of celebrating Saint Cecilia, the patron saint of musicians, whose canonical feast day falls on that date. November 22 is also Benjamin Britten’s birthday. Thus it is fitting that I have made Britten’s Hymn to St. Cecilia the centerpiece of today’s program. This work is a favorite among choral singers, and many consider it to be one of the masterworks of the 20th-century choral literature. As BCG’s last performance of the Hymn was 23 years ago, it was due for a return engagement! Many on our current roster have not encountered it before so I’m pleased to be introducing it to them, and perhaps to you as well.
St. Cecilia is one of several virgin martyrs commemorated by name in the Canon of the Mass in the Latin Church. She has been venerated for centuries in Catholic, Orthodox, Anglican, and some Lutheran Churches. Cecilia was born in Rome to a wealthy family in the early 3rd century. The details of her life are shrouded in legend. Tradition has it that she converted to Christianity and made a vow of virginity, but her parents forced her into marriage with a pagan nobleman named Valerian. During their wedding, Cecilia sat apart and “sang to God in her heart” as the musicians played. For that, she was later declared patron of music and musicians. When the time came for her marriage to be consummated, Cecilia told Valerian that watching over her was an angel of the Lord, who would punish him if he sexually violated her but would love him if he respected her virginity. When Valerian asked to see the angel, Cecilia told him to go to the third milestone on the Via Appia and be baptized by Pope Urban I. After following Cecilia’s advice, he saw the angel standing beside her, crowning her with roses and lilies. Soon thereafter, Valerian’s brother Tiburtius also converted, and both were soon arrested at the hand of Turcius Almachius, the prefect of Rome, and martyred when they refused to deny their faith. Through Cecilia’s preaching of Christianity, she converted four hundred people, which led to her also being arrested. Wishing to avoid the public execution of a member of a distinguished family, Almachius attempted to have her killed by suffocating heat and steam in a bathhouse, but she allegedly barely broke a sweat. Many versions of the legend say that three attempts were then made to behead her with a sword, and yet she lived through each one until succumbing to her injuries three days later, though not before preaching to the crowds who gathered and asking the pope to make her home a church.
Musicians of all stripes, especially organists (as she is said to have invented the organ, although there is no proof of this), have celebrated her throughout the intervening centuries. There are over 2,000 known works of art depicting St. Cecilia, including paintings, sculptures, stained glass windows, operas, poems, and novels. In the years 1683–1703 a citywide Saint Cecilia's Day festival was held in London every November 22. It was during this period that John Dryden wrote two odes that were used as libretti for these festivals: Alexander’s Feast, or the power of Music, and three years later, A Song for St. Cecilia’s Day. This latter ode provided the text for three of the composers on our program, and it has been set by many others as well. You may even recall that one Sanford Dole created a complete setting of Dryden’s ode, premiered by BCG in 2022.
We begin and end the program with gems from the English Baroque. Welcome to all Pleasures is the first in a series of works by Henry Purcell to honor Cecilia. It was commissioned by an organization called “The Musical Society” for performance in London on November 22, 1683. The text, by the relatively obscure poet Christopher Fishburn, begins with the line “Welcome to all the pleasures that delight of every sense the grateful appetite” and spins out from there in the flowery style of the day. It ends “Io Cecilia,” Io being an exclamation of joy or celebration. Out of time considerations I’ve decided to forego a long aria for countertenor in the middle, but I think you will still get a good picture of Purcell’s musical style.
John Gardner, a longtime professor at the Royal Academy of Music, is best known for his Christmas carol Tomorrow Shall Be My Dancing Day. Gardner’s A Song for St. Cecilia’s Day, dating from 1973, excerpts the first stanza of Dryden’s ode. It was commissioned for the Festival of St. Cecilia at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in London. Harmonically dense and mostly homophonic, the piece nonetheless portrays the text quite evocatively.
Residing in the northeastern part of the Netherlands, Jacob de Haan is known mainly as a composer of wind band and choir music. He is often invited as a guest conductor all over the world to perform his own works and as an adjudicator at international music competitions. Missa Santa Cecilia, dating from 2015, is another work intended to be performed at St. Cecilia’s Day festivals such as ours. The original version of this mass is set for band and choir, but the composer endorses using organ. He writes: “It is a festive, optimistic, but also comforting work, which in style perfectly suits the character of Saint Cecilia’s Feast Day.” Again for time reasons we’ll perform only the first three movements of the mass.
Still in his mid-thirties, Toby Young is an award-winning composer and producer, who creates immersive and innovative work that “defies stylistic pigeonholing” (Gramophone). On his website, his music is described as “rooted in the theatricality and storytelling of opera, the energy of electronic dance music and the emotion of film scores, creating evocative and powerful soundscapes that have been described as ‘sonically spectacular’ (Evening Standard) and ‘strikingly impressive’ (International Record Review).” Young composed A Song for Saint Cecilia’s Day in 2013 for the London Youth Choir and Reverie. He cherry-picked individual lines from Dryden’s eight-stanza ode to create a concise libretto for this through-composed five-minute piece. It is scored for double choir, with a total of 10 vocal lines, providing an atmospheric cloud of sound.
Malcolm Archer has had a career as an organist-choirmaster in several English churches, most notably at Wells Cathedral for six years, and later at St. Paul’s Cathedral for three. During his time at St. Paul’s he directed the choir for several important state services, including the service to celebrate the 80th birthday of Elizabeth II, for which he composed a special anthem. Archer is a prolific composer with well over 250 published works, which receive regular performances on BBC radio and TV.
When commissioned to write an anthem in 2015 in celebration of the 135th anniversary of the St. Cecilia Choir at All Saints Church, in Worcester, Massachusetts, Archer chose to forego Dryden’s ode in favor of the celebrated paean to St. Cecilia by writer Ursula Vaughan Williams, Ralph Vaughan Williams’s biographer and second wife. Archer’s publisher aptly describes A Hymn for St. Cecilia in the following manner:
John Gardner, a longtime professor at the Royal Academy of Music, is best known for his Christmas carol Tomorrow Shall Be My Dancing Day. Gardner’s A Song for St. Cecilia’s Day, dating from 1973, excerpts the first stanza of Dryden’s ode. It was commissioned for the Festival of St. Cecilia at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in London. Harmonically dense and mostly homophonic, the piece nonetheless portrays the text quite evocatively.
Residing in the northeastern part of the Netherlands, Jacob de Haan is known mainly as a composer of wind band and choir music. He is often invited as a guest conductor all over the world to perform his own works and as an adjudicator at international music competitions. Missa Santa Cecilia, dating from 2015, is another work intended to be performed at St. Cecilia’s Day festivals such as ours. The original version of this mass is set for band and choir, but the composer endorses using organ. He writes: “It is a festive, optimistic, but also comforting work, which in style perfectly suits the character of Saint Cecilia’s Feast Day.” Again for time reasons we’ll perform only the first three movements of the mass.
Still in his mid-thirties, Toby Young is an award-winning composer and producer, who creates immersive and innovative work that “defies stylistic pigeonholing” (Gramophone). On his website, his music is described as “rooted in the theatricality and storytelling of opera, the energy of electronic dance music and the emotion of film scores, creating evocative and powerful soundscapes that have been described as ‘sonically spectacular’ (Evening Standard) and ‘strikingly impressive’ (International Record Review).” Young composed A Song for Saint Cecilia’s Day in 2013 for the London Youth Choir and Reverie. He cherry-picked individual lines from Dryden’s eight-stanza ode to create a concise libretto for this through-composed five-minute piece. It is scored for double choir, with a total of 10 vocal lines, providing an atmospheric cloud of sound.
Malcolm Archer has had a career as an organist-choirmaster in several English churches, most notably at Wells Cathedral for six years, and later at St. Paul’s Cathedral for three. During his time at St. Paul’s he directed the choir for several important state services, including the service to celebrate the 80th birthday of Elizabeth II, for which he composed a special anthem. Archer is a prolific composer with well over 250 published works, which receive regular performances on BBC radio and TV.
When commissioned to write an anthem in 2015 in celebration of the 135th anniversary of the St. Cecilia Choir at All Saints Church, in Worcester, Massachusetts, Archer chose to forego Dryden’s ode in favor of the celebrated paean to St. Cecilia by writer Ursula Vaughan Williams, Ralph Vaughan Williams’s biographer and second wife. Archer’s publisher aptly describes A Hymn for St. Cecilia in the following manner:
Rich harmonies, shifting tonalities, and expressive melodies combine to evoke the changing moods explored within the text. The poignant Andante section midway through the piece, sung by a solo soprano, is a pivotal moment; it gives way to increasingly jubilant and powerful writing that brings the work to an ecstatic conclusion.
After intermission we are excited to perform Benjamin Britten’s Hymn to St. Cecilia. Composed between 1940 and 1942, it sets a text created for Britten by W. H. Auden. Britten first met Auden when they worked together on a number of large-scale works, including the operetta Paul Bunyan. Britten had long wanted to write a piece dedicated to St. Cecilia but had trouble finding a Latin text that suited his needs, so he asked Auden to provide a text. Auden complied, sending the poem in sections throughout 1940, along with advice on how Britten could be a better artist. This was to be one of the last works they collaborated on. According to Britten’s partner Peter Pears in 1980, “Ben was on a different track now, and he was no longer prepared to be dominated—bullied—by Wystan [Auden], whose musical feeling he was very well aware of.”
A life-long pacifist, Britten had retreated, along with Pears, to the United States at the start of World War II. He began setting Hymn to St. Cecilia in the U.S. for a performance in the fall of 1941. In 1942, in the midst of the war, Britten and Pears decided to return home to England. The customs inspectors confiscated all of Britten’s manuscripts, fearing they could be some type of code. Britten re-wrote the manuscript while aboard the MS Axel Johnson, and finished it on April 2, 1942. It was on that same shipboard crossing of the Atlantic that he composed A Ceremony of Carols, which has a similar musical style.
The work is in three sections, each of which concludes with a refrain invoking the muse: “Blessed Cecilia, appear in visions to all musicians, appear and inspire.” This is a thought I carry with me at all times.
Another towering figure in 20th-century British composition is Herbert Howells, most famous for his large output of Anglican church music. In 1959-60, Howells was Master of the Worshipful Company of Musicians. This body, which is one of the Livery Companies of the city of London, has a history dating back to the middle of the fourteenth century. At one time, this musicians’ guild had complete control over all musical performances in London. They now serve a ceremonial and philanthropic role. When they commissioned him in 1960 to add to the long list of works celebrating Cecilia, he too chose to set Ursula Vaughan Williams’s ode. Conductor and composer Paul Spicer has written of this work:
A life-long pacifist, Britten had retreated, along with Pears, to the United States at the start of World War II. He began setting Hymn to St. Cecilia in the U.S. for a performance in the fall of 1941. In 1942, in the midst of the war, Britten and Pears decided to return home to England. The customs inspectors confiscated all of Britten’s manuscripts, fearing they could be some type of code. Britten re-wrote the manuscript while aboard the MS Axel Johnson, and finished it on April 2, 1942. It was on that same shipboard crossing of the Atlantic that he composed A Ceremony of Carols, which has a similar musical style.
The work is in three sections, each of which concludes with a refrain invoking the muse: “Blessed Cecilia, appear in visions to all musicians, appear and inspire.” This is a thought I carry with me at all times.
Another towering figure in 20th-century British composition is Herbert Howells, most famous for his large output of Anglican church music. In 1959-60, Howells was Master of the Worshipful Company of Musicians. This body, which is one of the Livery Companies of the city of London, has a history dating back to the middle of the fourteenth century. At one time, this musicians’ guild had complete control over all musical performances in London. They now serve a ceremonial and philanthropic role. When they commissioned him in 1960 to add to the long list of works celebrating Cecilia, he too chose to set Ursula Vaughan Williams’s ode. Conductor and composer Paul Spicer has written of this work:
The wonderful dancing-on-tiptoe nature of this piece takes its cue from the syncopated first vocal entry, and each phrase finds increasingly high notes as the verse goes on. It is a classic “cumulative” tune which carries the singer along on a tide of increasing emotional energy and leaves an impression of being a piece much bigger than its component parts.
Polish choirmaster and music arranger Marcin Wawruk is a professor at the University of Warmia and Mazury in Olsztyn. He leads vocal workshops and often serves on juries at choral competitions. He has worked as a vocal coach on television shows, such as “Poland’s Got Talent.” Aside from teaching, his primary occupation now is the directorship of “ProForma,” a professional vocal ensemble. Cecílíada is based on two contrasting styles. The first is Latin-American, with a combination of ostinato motives that “groove together with a sparkling melody on top.” A slow-moving legato section in a romantic motet style provides a contrasting middle section, before the piece returns to the opening motives, driving to a rhythmic conclusion.
We revisit Dryden’s grand ode one last time with excerpts from Ode for St. Cecilia’s Day by George Frederick Handel. When I composed my own setting of the ode, I modeled it after Handel’s, setting each of the poem’s stanzas as separate movements, some of them for a soloist. Handel’s complete score runs for over 50 minutes, far too long for this concert, so I’ve dropped several of the solos and extended interludes. Still, you’ll get a good dose of Handel’s inimitable style.
Handel composed his Ode in a mere nine days, during September of 1739. Commentator John Henken, writing for the Los Angeles Philharmonic, notes that “this speed was undoubtedly aided by taking a number of themes from recently published keyboard suites by the Viennese composer Gottlieb Muffat. This kind of ‘borrowing’ was a standard practice for Handel, as was his distinctive transformation of the material.” In the short period between the composition of the Ode and its premiere, he wrote the twelve great concerti grossi of his opus 6, of which the fifth borrows music from the overture to the Ode.
Martin Pearlman, program annotator for Boston Baroque, describes the genesis of this work:
We revisit Dryden’s grand ode one last time with excerpts from Ode for St. Cecilia’s Day by George Frederick Handel. When I composed my own setting of the ode, I modeled it after Handel’s, setting each of the poem’s stanzas as separate movements, some of them for a soloist. Handel’s complete score runs for over 50 minutes, far too long for this concert, so I’ve dropped several of the solos and extended interludes. Still, you’ll get a good dose of Handel’s inimitable style.
Handel composed his Ode in a mere nine days, during September of 1739. Commentator John Henken, writing for the Los Angeles Philharmonic, notes that “this speed was undoubtedly aided by taking a number of themes from recently published keyboard suites by the Viennese composer Gottlieb Muffat. This kind of ‘borrowing’ was a standard practice for Handel, as was his distinctive transformation of the material.” In the short period between the composition of the Ode and its premiere, he wrote the twelve great concerti grossi of his opus 6, of which the fifth borrows music from the overture to the Ode.
Martin Pearlman, program annotator for Boston Baroque, describes the genesis of this work:
During the 1730s, Handel was making a fitful transition from Italian opera to English-language works, and in 1736 he set his first Dryden ode, Alexander’s Feast, or the Power of Music. Three years later, in 1739, his annual concert series was to open in a new theater on November 22, St. Cecilia’s Day. The obvious repertoire would be his own Cecilia ode, Alexander’s Feast. That work alone, however, was too short to make a complete concert, so he set about composing music to Dryden’s other Cecilia ode to supplement it. The Ode for St. Cecilia’s Day, as the second work is known, was the shorter of the two, and comprised the final third of the concert.
Ode for St. Cecilia’s Day was enormously popular, and Handel revived it for performances nine times during his lifetime.
We hope you enjoy Celebrating Cecilia with us. Please join us again next March, when we present a program of choral Collaborations with solo instrumentalists.
