"Hail! Bright Cecilia" is an important work in the history of music. Influenced as he was by Italian writing, Purcell helped permanently integrate the Italian style into English musical composition. It also was an important influence on Handel's writing, and the history of choral music would not be the same without it.

Saint Cecilia was a third century Roman martyr, and is traditionally known as the patron saint of music and of the blind. She had vowed to remain a virgin as a child, but because she was a noblewoman, she was forced to marry. She married Valerian, a pagan, on the condition that she be allowed to remain a virgin. She told him that an angel of God had told her to take a vow of chastity, but he wanted to see the angel. He came home one day and found Cecilia speaking with the angel, and converted soon afterwards, as did his brother Tiburtius. She was martyred by the prefect Almachius when she gave away all her possessions to the poor, against his commands. He tried to have her burned, but had to have her beheaded when the fire didn't scathe her. Both Valerian and Tiburtius had been martyred before her, and Valerian also became a saint. She was buried in Rome, and when she was canonized, she became the patroness of music. She is often depicted playing the organ.

The earliest recorded date of a public celebration of the Feast of Saint Cecilia is in 1570 at Evreaux in Normandy. Her feast day is November 22. They gave prizes for the finest musical compositions and the best composers entered the competition. Lassus is known to have taken part. The celebrations of the Feast of St. Cecilia in Purcell's day were not a result of these earlier celebrations. There was no continuum, as far as anyone knows. A group called the "Musical Society", a group of men that included the publisher John Playford, initiated the celebrations in 1682. The singers that took part were from Westminster Abbey Choir, St. Paul's Cathedral, and the Chapel Royal. The musicians were from the King's band and from the theaters, so many of them were professionals. In 1683, the "Musical Society" commissioned the first of Purcell's Odes for St. Cecilia's Day. It was a choral work on a grand scale, and for the next twenty years it was the model that other composers emulated. The "Musical Society" didn't commission another Ode for St. Cecilia's Day from Purcell until 1692, but other composers such as Blow, Eccles, and Clarke wrote odes for the Festivities in the meantime.

In 1692, the "Gentlemen Lovers of Musick" commissioned another ode from Mr. Purcell. "Hail, Bright Cecilia!" is a brilliant work for large choruses, orchestra, soloists and vocal ensembles. It has thirteen movements and sets a poem by the Reverend Nicholas Brady in praise of Cecilia, music, and the instruments of music. Large scale choral works were new, and were inspired, in part, by a man named Giovanni Battista Draghi, an Italian with whom Purcell had studied. It is the type of choral writing that influenced Handel's compositions, and marks the beginning of the secular choral tradition in England. It was secular choral music because the celebration of St. Cecilia's Day was a civic entertainment, put on for the entire population. The musicians that took part made money off it; it was a commercial venture for them, and the Odes that were commissioned for the celebrations were performed in public concert halls. They added to the professional musical life of the city.

In the composition of "Hail, Bright Cecilia!", Purcell supplied an unbelievable amount of variety and diversity, coupled with unifying forces that resolve the diverse elements into a complete whole. One of the unifying elements is the structure. Purcell walks the listener through eight key centers; he begins in D Major and minor, and two third of the way through the piece ends up in E minor. Then he travels back again to end the work in D. He composed two large choruses, one after the opening symphony, and one at the very end, that balance one another. And at the very center is a third chorus entitled "Soul of the World". It is about the creation of the world, the creation of music, and of the resolution of all into "Perfect Harmony." The overall formal balance of the work is incredible.

The opening symphony is also highly structured, and is Purcell's most Italianate work. It has five sections that alternate between slow and fast tempi. It is organized by key also. It opens in D major, and in between the sections in D major are sections in A minor and D minor. The opening movement is antiphonal with a gently pulsing theme of repeated notes; the strings and the trumpets and kettle drum answer one another. There follows a canzona on two subjects. There is much fugal material throughout this work, and the contrapuntal style also serves to unify and add variety. The third movement is a beautiful dialogue between oboes and violins marked adagio. An allegro fanfare intervenes for contrast, and a slow section full of harmonic tension da capos back to the trumpet fanfare.

Another way that Purcell provides unity throughout is simpler. He connects disparate pieces together with musical material. One example is after the piece "Wondrous Machine". There are four bars at the end that tie into "The Airy Violin". The first is a musical painting of a chugging organ; the second of violins unable to keep their pitch. Another example is when the bass viol connects "Thou Tun'st This World" to "With That Sublime Celestial Lay". The texture, mood, and thematic material of the two pieces are different, but the playing didn't stop between the movements, and the connecting material allowed for continuity.

One of the ways that Purcell supplies variety is by varying the textures. First of all, Purcell had a full range of voices at his disposal, and a full orchestra. He had sopranos, altos, countertenors, tenors, and basses. He had strings including a bass viol, oboes, trumpets, flutes or recorders, including a bass recorder, and kettle drum. For any particular section of music he could use all of his resources, or as few of his resources as he liked. He combines and recombines voices, timbres and textures throughout. This piece is continually inventive. The melodies, the countermelodies, and the accompaniments, all serve to make this imaginative and delightful on every level. There isn't a moment of monotony in the entire work.

He has a somber bass solo introduce first chorus, and has the solo texture contrast sharply with the full chorus and orchestra that follows. The declamation is florid and sets the mood for the work. The chorus mixes fugal writing with homophonic, and is full of harmonic tension. IT is almost somber, with constant motion in the ground bass imitated in all the other voices. In the opening choral movement, he contrast a duet of two countertenors with a duet of soprano and tenor. The effect is quite startling. The range of the countertenor voice is within that of the female vocal range, but the timbre of the two voices is very dissimilar. The tenor is the lowest voice of the four voices in this section, making it a very treble experience. And these duets interrupt a full chorus and orchestra that is busy singing a fugato on a meandering melody full of harmonic tension. The fugato is over a continually moving ground. The theme also is in constant, regular motion. The duets that interrupt it are melismatic, and have lyrical, embellished, soaring lines, with almost a medieval quality to them.

He wrote a bass duet right before the final chorus. He seemed to like the weight of the basses alone and in relief against grander choral movements. "Let these among themselves contest" features two bass voices, and a bass viol, and is in minor. The basses answer one another throughout, and also interact with the bass instrument. There are two sections in this full movement given to the lowest register. The first is quiet, with intertwining melodies that finally resolve. The second builds to a climax by ornamenting the melodic line, extending it, and by breaking it up, over constant motion in the bass line. The words "All all" are sung in an echoing fashion, and sixteenth note passages in ornamentation of the melody bring the voices back together to cadence.

The harmonic centerpiece of the work, "Wondrous Machine" is also for bass voice. It is a musical painting of a chugging organ, St. Cecilia's instrument, and is a bass solo in combination with oboes. The piece is built over a constantly moving machine-like ground and is meant to imitate the sounds of the organ. The rich resonance of the lower register and the reedy timbre of the oboes give a realistic impression of the playing of a pipe organ.

"Hark Each Tree' is a duet over a ground bass for soprano and bass. The text is about the creation of the flutes and the violins, so the instrumental writing is a duet between flutes or recorders, and violins. "Hark Each Tree" also makes use of a bass recorder. "Tis Nature's Voice is a florid Italianate recitative for alto or countertenor solo. Over the words "And straight we grieve" there is beautiful chromatic word painting. The mood changes and the word "rejoice" is set to a four bar sixteenth passage.

The chorus "Soul of the World", at the center, is a grand chorus on a large scale. It is about the creation of the universe and the importance of music and harmony to that creation. The piece is full of imitation, word painting, and texture variation. As the words "thou didst the scattered atoms bind" are sung, scattering sixteenth notes are played over a ground bass. The chorus breaks out in canon and comes back together in homophonic style on the words "One Perfect Harmony", the binding material of the scattered atoms.

"Thou Tuns't this World" is for soprano solo, oboe, and chorus, over a ground bass. It also features an instrumental introductory section. Purcell takes after Lully in this movement, with his extended use of dotted rhythms and imitative entrances. The thematic material is presented three times in irregular phrase lengths and rises upwards in imitation on the word "heavenly". The soprano solo is lyrical and beautiful.

The final chorus is triumphant. It also is highly structured. It opens with a fanfare on the word "Hail!", as if to herald St. Cecilia's arrival. On the phrase "Who whilst among the quire" Purcell begins his fugue. It is a completely worked out fugue, with countersubject, and a final statement of the original subject in double augmentation in the bass. It is interrupted by a quartet of voices, and during this quartet the emotional high of the movement is reached. "Rapture of delight" and "infinite felicity" are depicted emotionally, as the music becomes exalted and ecstatic. The choir again breaks into the chorus of "Hail! Bright Cecilia", closing the ode in a state of Euphoria.

The poem for Purcell's "Hail , Bright Cecilia" was written by the Reverend Nicholas Brady. It opens with a stanza in Praise of St. Cecilia, and a prayer that all will come to love music. The next stanzas are about the various instruments. "Hark each Tree" is about the violin and the flute, and is based upon a simple image. It is the image of the wood of the box and fir trees coming alive and learning how to speak, as they are turned into violins and flutes.

"Tis Nature's Voice" is a short stanza on the effects of music, to move the heart, to "strike the ear", to garner the emotions, and to "captivate the mind". "Soul of the World" is one of the most interesting images. It is simultaneously about the creation of the universe, and the creation of a musical composition. "Jarring seeds of matter" and "scattered atoms" were bound into the formation of the world by the principles of harmony. Harmony is created by the joining of "various parts", as in a fugue or fugato, types of compositions Purcell used throughout "Hail, Bright Cecilia".

There are two movements in praise of the organ, but I think from one verse of poetry. "With that Sublime Celestial Lay" speaks of the organ having been the instrument of St. Cecilia, and a sacred instrument, especially invented for the creation of music in honor of the heavens. "Wond'rous Machine" is a funny couplet. The lute, Brady states, must flee before such conquest. It can do no better than warble, but the organ is a "Wond'rous Machine".

The next few stanzas are also humorous. "The Airy Violin" is all about the limitations of the violins. Violins cannot produce a beautiful sound in order to "court the fair or praise victorious kings". They are insufficiently beautiful to honor heaven. They cannot even keep their pitch. "In Vain the Am'rous Flute" jeers at the flutes' inability to inspire "wanton heat and loose desire". It can sing lovely tunes and airs, and move the heavens, but is useless down here on earth.

Again the fife is useless in "The Fife and all the Harmony of War." The sound of a fife cannot possibly alarm one or call one to battle. But it is capable of charm. "Let These Among Themselves Contest" resolves the poem. The various instruments can, if they like, argue with one another about which one of them "discharges their duty best". But for all their individual faults, together they make fine consorts.

Another chorus to "Hail! Bright Cecilia" ends the work. In honor of the patron saint of music, the poet asserts that music is essential to heaven, and eternal happiness. Music, or St. Cecilia's "Fav'rite art make up a part Of infinite felicity."

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