https://www.discogs.com/Georg-Friedrich-Händel-Ode-For-Saint-Cecilias-Day/release/9561354
This is a record to make me feel good. I like Händel. It is cheerful music, in this case to celebrate the patron saint of music. Listening to it brightens up my day.
The cover has nice 70s colours that look a bit like my old vacation pictures from the 70s. The blue is a bit too blue, the magenta a bit too, well, magenta. The recording quality is good, and so is the performance. If you love Händel, I can recommend this crispy recording of a not too well known work.
The work itself is this kind of mini oratorium, or cantata. Händel made a lot of those. His opera’s are more famous, but this is certainly something not to be missed. In my opinion Händel is a superb songwriter, with strong melodies.
Händel puts music to a poem by John Dryden, about music as a creating force in the world. Music created the world. The first stanza:
From harmony, from heavenly 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! Arise!
Arise ye more than dead!
Then cold, and hot, and moist, and dry,
In order to their stations leap!
And music’s power obey!
And music’s power obey!
An ode to music.