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Views from the Choir Loft

What passion cannot music raise and quell!

Veronica Brandt · November 23, 2013

203 St. Cecilia [1] Click to enlarge image OR YESTERDAY’S FEAST, a piece of non-liturgical poetry praising the power of music. If you have read it before, you won’t mind seeing it again. If you haven’t read it, you are in for a treat.

Best read aloud.

A Song for Saint Cecilia’s Day by John Dryden,

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.

Opinions by blog authors do not necessarily represent the views of Corpus Christi Watershed.

Filed Under: Articles Last Updated: January 1, 2020

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About Veronica Brandt

Veronica Brandt holds a Bachelor Degree in Electrical Engineering. She lives near Sydney, Australia, with her husband and six children.—(Read full biography).

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Quick Thoughts

    PDF • “For the Season of Pentecost”
    During the season of Pentecost, you might consider using this 2-page Piece “for the season of Pentecost.” Rehearsal videos are available at #40691, but the lyrics are different. Therefore, make sure your choir members understand that one can rehearse songs that have different lyrics (“CONTRAFACT”).
    —Jeff Ostrowski
    Introit • (This Coming Sunday)
    Our volunteer choir appreciates training videos, so here's my attempt at recording “Exáudi Dómine Vocem Meam,” which is the INTROIT for this coming Sunday. This coming Sunday is Dominica Post Ascensionem (“Sunday after the feast of the Ascension”). It is sung according to the official rhythm of the Catholic Church.
    —Jeff Ostrowski
    Volunteer Choir Attempts “Kýrie Eléison”
    My volunteer choir attempted the polyphonic KYRIE that will be sung at this year's Sacred Music Symposium. If you're interested, you can listen to the live recording from last Sunday. The piece is based on the ancient plainchant hymn melody: Ave Maris Stella. Polyphony like this is truly intricate and wonderful. It reminds me of the quote by Artur Schnabel: “music that's greater than it can be performed.”
    —Jeff Ostrowski

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“In everything of any importance at all, Sarum (and all other mediæval rites) was simply Roman, the rite which we still use.”

— Fr. Adrian Fortescue (1912)

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