Hi there! I hope every musician in the world has had a wonderful day. I've been having a very slow day thanks to my stomach, but at least some congratulations coming over from friends helped cheering me up.
As many of these days, Musicians's Day is a Christian celebration for a Saint. In this case, it is St. Cecilia. She was declared Patron Saint of Musicians. Here comes a piece a Hymn to St. Cecilia written by Benjamin Britten (1913-1976). He wrote this for a lot of reasons but mainly because he was born on a day like this.
The British have a long tradition of writing odes and poems for St. Cecilia. Back when I was doing my British Literature course, I had to analyse a famous poem by John Dryden A Song for St. Cecilia's Day.
From harmony, from Heav'nly 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 pow'r obey.
From harmony, from Heav'nly 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 corded shell,
His list'ning brethren stood around
And wond'ring, 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 clangor
Excites us to arms
With shrill notes of anger
And mortal alarms.
The double double double beat
Of the thund'ring 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 oh! what art can teach
What human voice can reach
The sacred organ's praise?
Notes inspiring holy love,
Notes that wing their Heav'nly ways
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 high'r;
When to her organ, vocal breath was giv'n,
An angel heard, and straight appear'd
Mistaking earth for Heav'n.
GRAND CHORUS
As from the pow'r of sacred lays
The spheres began to move,
And sung the great Creator's praise
To all the bless'd 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.
Some of the themes of this poem deal with this religious notion that only voices are sacred. It also embellishes the feats of St. Cecilia who was a great singer saying her voice was almost identical to a angel.
Around here, celebrations of this day begin with a Mass that invites all the musicians in town to attend church. There's a amazing glasswork at St. Ines's Church (The Patron Saint of Cumana, my hometown) depicting St. Cecilia. After all this takes places, you can find celebrations in different points of the city with any kind of music. People play, drink, laugh, dance and for a moment they put aside the problems (and I should also mention that yesterday, in the regional elections, the socialist won 21 out of 24 regional Governments, including this State). I think we could use a little celebration because of this.
As for me, I spent the day at home with indigestion and working very slowly in some instruments. But coming here to write gave me a chance to enjoy some amazing choral pieces. Things that brought back memories from my years of singing in choirs. There was time to spend congratulations around. However, here's something funny about this fact.
I got to speak with my dear,@mipiano, about her new post. She's finally delving into Traditional Venezuelan Music. I expect we can make a collaboration in the future. I know I'm on the list. But no pressure. We talked about so many things that it didn't struck us.
We didn't send our wished to each other until she was off to write her post. I almost barely. This little remark was enough to make my whole day.
I hope all of you have enjoyed your Musicians's Day! Here's to more music, concerts and years of musical bliss.
Your post has been manually curated by the Stick Up Boys Curation team!
Because we love your content we've upvoted and reblogged it!
Keep on creating great quality content!
Follow @stickupcurator for great music and art content!
Have some !PIZZA because...
Happy Musician's Day!!! Yes, how strange and good, that writing a post and playing a composition from Venezuela, and rambling that I owe collaborations can make another person write another post too hahha, and even better, to congratulate each other on the Day of Musicians!! I forgot, indeed, you too 😂 almost, but what is important you remembered 👍
Ha, ha, ha. It is the funniest remark of the day. I guess we are to comfortable talking to each other to remember these things. My guess is that it's ok. But who knows. 😂
Where am I in the list of collaborations? You already stepped into Traditional Venezuelan Music. There's no turning back.
Yeah, I know the list... ;D but, you have to look from the positive angle, we already had one successful collaboration, the poetry + music ;)
Indeed. But we are still missing the music collaboration. ;)
ok ok ok ;)
🖋 bertrayo on the list ;))
Ha, ha, ha.
Does this mean I'm on the bottom of the list? 😅
PIZZA Holders sent $PIZZA tips in this post's comments:
@stickupcurator(8/10) tipped @bertrayo (x1)
Join us in Discord!