A Song for St. Cecilia's Day

Edmond Malone preserved a few verses of an ode, by an anonymous author, in 1633; that of 1684 was furnished by Oldham, whom Dryden commemorated by an elegy; that of 1685 was written by Nahum Tate.

… On that day, or the next when it falls on a Sunday, … most of the lovers of music, whereof many are persons of the first rank, meet at Stationers' Hall in London, not through a principle of superstition, but to propagate the advancement of that divine science.

A splendid entertainment is provided, and before it is always a performance of music, by the best voices and hands in town: the words, which are always in the patronesses praise, are set by some of the greatest masters.

This year [1691] Dr John Blow, that famous musician, composed the music; and Mr D'Urfey, whose skill in things of that nature is well known, made the words.

"[5] As from the power 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 hourThis crumbling pageant shall devour,The trumpet shall be heard on high,⁠The dead shall live, the living die,And musick shall untune the sky.Italian composer Giovanni Battista Draghi wrote the first musical arrangement for "A Song for St. Cecilia's Day" in 1687.

[6] In 1958, American composer Norman Dello Joio once again put the ode to music in his cantata for mixed voices and piano or brass instruments, and called it "To Saint Cecilia".