From Lutheran Service Book’s Daily Lectionary for November 22:
Then I heard what seemed to be the voice of a great multitude, like the roar of many waters and like the sound of mighty peals of thunder, crying out,
“Hallelujah!
For the Lord our God
the Almighty reigns.” (Revelation 19:6)
Or, to put it another way (especially if you’re George Frederic Handel (and his librettist Charles Jennens):
But wait, there’s more …
Then I saw an angel standing in the sun, and with a loud voice he called to all the birds that fly directly overhead, “Come, gather for the great supper of God, to eat the flesh of kings, the flesh of captains, the flesh of mighty men, the flesh of horses and their riders, and the flesh of all men, both free and slave, both small and great.” (Revelation 19:17-18)
Or, to put it another way, if you’re Genesis with Peter Gabriel:
Of course, I do not want or desire to conflate that which is sacred with that which is profane. The Sabbath does not exist for the right of association. Yet, as we pause and reflect on the many great and grand blessings bestowed upon us as Americans, we would be foolish to ignore the tradition of self-governance, of community building, and of the right to association. Once again, it is healthy to remember what we should cherish. Plato, after all, told us we must love what should be loved and hate what should be hated. In rough times, we too readily remember the hate part but forget the love part. As you celebrate your time with your family, eat turkey and mashed potatoes, and watch, for the 1000th time, Home Alone, don’t forget to give thanks—to all of those who came before us and, especially, to He who created us in His image to know, to serve, and to love Him.
— Read on theimaginativeconservative.org/2018/11/harmony-order-thanksgiving-bradley-birzer.html
In 1683, a new organization, the Musical Society of London, commissioned a setting of Christopher Fishburn’s ode Welcome to All the Pleasures for performance on St. Cecilia’s Day — November 22nd. The Society chose Henry Purcell, 24 years old and already the organist at both Westminister Abbey and the Chapel Royal, as the composer.
Welcome to All the Pleasures proved a hit, with Purcell’s innovative use of the ritornello (a riff for strings punctuating a section of the work) and the ground (a repeating bass line anchoring vocal variations) causing quite the sensation. Not only it was published the following year — a rarity for an extended work in Restoration England — it became the first in a series of Cecilian odes commissioned by the Musical Society for their annual celebration. Purcell wrote three more such odes before his untimely death in 1695, as did contemporaries like John Blow and successors like George Frederic Handel, often setting libretti by renowned poets such as John Dryden and Alexander Pope.
This year, St. Cecilia’s Day is also Thanksgiving Day in the United States. Why not give thanks for the gifts of music and poetry by spending 15 minutes with Welcome to All the Pleasures? The text of Christopher Fishburn’s ode follows below the playlist.
Welcome to All the Pleasures:
Symphony
Alto, tenor and bass: chorus: ritornello
Welcome to all the pleasures that delight
Of ev’ry sense the grateful appetite,
Hail, great assembly of Apollo’s race.
Hail to this happy place, this musical assembly
That seems to be the arc of universal harmony.
Alto: ritornello
Here the Deities approve
The God of Music and of Love;
All the talents they have lent you,
All the blessings they have sent you,
Pleas’d to see what they bestow,
Live and thrive so well below.
Two sopranos and bass: ritornello
While joys celestial their bright souls invade
To find what great improvement you have made.
Alto, tenor and bass: chorus
Then lift up your voices, those organs of nature,
Those charms to the troubled and amorous creature.
The power shall divert us a pleasanter way,
For sorrow and grief find from music relief,
And love its soft charms must obey.
Then lift up your voices, those organs of nature,
Those charms to the troubled and amorous creature.
Tenor: ritornello
Beauty, thou scene of love,
And virtue thou innocent fire,
Made by the powers above
To temper the heat of desire,
Music that fancy employs
In rapture of innocent flame,
We offer with lute and with voice
To Cecilia, Cecilia’s bright name.
Tenor: chorus
In a consort of voices while instruments play
With music we celebrate this holy day;
Iô Cecilia!
(This is the second in a series exploring the Cecilian Ode, a uniquely English poetic and musical genre that spans the centuries from the late 1600s to the present. Check out Ode #1 here; look for a new ode on or about the 22nd of each month!)
Spirit of Cecilia twitter account says — “We love culture, high and low” — that does sort of mirror my interests. Reading and writing about classic Liberals, British and American — reading and writing about extreme metal, Scandinavian and American, tend to be my hobbies. Sort of occupying the two margins of culture — ancient and high, and then what some would term as low and loud I guess.
Thanks to Prof. Birzer for inviting me, and providing another platform to convey ideas.
Spirit of Cecilia 
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