I notice that the calendar gives St Cecilia's Day as 1 November.  I don't know why that is.  1 November is All Saints (the day after All Hallows Eve).  I have entered St Cecilia on 22 November

And by ocean's margin this innocent virgin
Constructed an organ to enlarge her prayer
And notes tremendous from her great engine
Thundered out on the Roman air


Thank you, W H Auden.

I just looked it up to check if Auden's Anthem for St C was the source of tinner's recent effusion.

I'm not easily shocked (as the actress said to the bishop) but this innocent virgin Constructed an organ to enlarge.  Really blush making.

I don't know Britten's setting of Auden's words: given his delicate sensibilities I'm suprised he coped with that line.

NB I didn't have room on the calendar to add that 22 November is also Ben Britten's Birthday.  Its as good as Shakespeare and St George.

Ah, I have sung that version many times  .

a little nod to Ned Sherrin's memory there too

Still not as mirth-provoking as "Come ye sons, O fart away", though, I find?   Nor even that Purcellian hedgerow-crossing for sprites, "Fairy Stile".

OK this is fascinating for a musical Muggle like me.

I don't know the Britten setting.  I have come across the words in Auden's poetry.  What is the musical setting called, and what recordings are there?

While we are on the subject of WHA and BB, any comments on Paul Bunyan, (a work I have never heard)?

Hymn to St. Cecilia, for unaccompanied chorus, op. 27

I only know one recording, but I think it's excellent: the Monteverdi Choir under Gardiner (on Deutsche Grammophon, actually as a filler for the Spring Symphony).  Truly beautiful is exquisite soprano solo by Emma Preston-Dunlop (I reckon):

"O dear white children casual as birds,
Playing among the ruined languages,
So small beside their large confusing words,
So gay against the greater silences
Of dreadful things you did: O hang the head,
Impetuous child with the tremendous brain,
O weep, child, weep, O weep away the stain,
Lost innocence who wished your lover dead,
Weep for the lives your wishes never led."

Would this be about Britten too?  'Lost innocence' and all that.  To be honest, I don't understand a word of it.  But it's absolutely beautiful in song.

Wish I could remember! The cast were mostly young "up-and-comings", as I recall - some of the leads were played by established "G&S" performers (I seem to remember Nicki Lanzetter, who was a "World Of G&S" soloist, was one of the mezzos).  Anyhow, "Strephon" was made-out to be "Red Ken"... Sherrin had substantially rewritten the dialogue for that show, which I thought was justified as he was really doing a political skit, only loosely based on the original. Which of us would remember who "Captain Shaw" was from the original, were it not for the footnotes industry?    IOLANTHE's a very odd piece...  there are snippets of Wagner lurking in the score (the "Tristan motif" turns up in the middle of Phyllis's Act One ballad, for example) but I can't see why they are there?  I suppose there is a vague parallel with an all-powerful "Lord" who breaks the laws he himself is supposed to supervise,  but if so there ought to be some RING quotes - and there aren't.

And Tamsin Dives was in the chorus, I see!