Musiques pour Sainte Cécile

Just now, after I'd searched for Massenet and Seeli Toivio, this appeared on my youtube page, and smote my conscience; as if to chide me for having so long slighted poor St. Cecile by neglecting her art. So I post this as penance: your pardon, gentle Saint.

Perhaps, having appeased sweet Cecile, who also shares patronage of poetry with St. Columba, my fleeting muse will return to me and I will be able to engage productively in my own art. (Although, to be honest, I feel more at home with St. Columba, who was also a warrior: Scots-Irish patron of warrior-poets--yes!) Perhaps they share a court in heaven--after all, what goes together better than words and music?

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Also, it's quite good. I especially love the part from the Handel/Dryden section, "What passion cannot music raise and quell?" <sigh> And incidentally, isn't the cello the soloist plays in this part mega-cool, decorated with the heraldic sun and fleurs-de-lys?

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The soft complaining flute
In dying notes discovers
The woes of hopeless lovers,
Whose dirge is whispered by the warbling lute.

Sharp violins proclaim,
Their jealous pangs,
And desperation!
Fury, frantic indignation!
Depth of pains, and height of passion,
For the fair disdainful dame!

Oh, my. Well-said, Mr. Dryden. Well-said indeed. That is why I cannot easily listen. As Shakespeare says, music is the food of love. And any appetite one feeds grows stronger. Save me.

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No, it's no use. I am lost. My God...the Haydn Credo....