Luogo e data di registrazione		Festsaal der Freien Waldorfschule, Brema (Germania) - ottobre 1977 Casino Zögernitz, Vienna (Austria) - febbraio 1978
	Registrazione: live / studio		studio
	Producer		-
	Edizione CD		TELDEC - 8.42349 XH (242 832-2) - (1 CD - durata 49' 28") - (c) 1989 - ADD
	Originale LP		TELEFUNKEN - 6.42349 AW - (1 LP - durata 49' 28") - (p) 1978 - Analogico
	Note		-

The Roman martyr Cecilia, whose veneration and festive day (22nd November) have been observed since the 5th century, became the patron saint of music in the 14th or 13th century and in particular music as god-given "harmonia", representing the harmony of the world. As verified hy pictures since the 14th century, the organ became the attribute of the saint as the specific instrument most perfectly embodying the Christian concept of harmony. In Raffael's famous painting the broken instruments lying on the floor provide eloquent evidence of how superior the organ was to them, and how very much it had become a symbolic instrumental the beginning of the 16th century. With such a traditional background it was inevitable that the festivities connected with the saint were observed with far-reaching musical functions. It was at least also for this purpose that Cecilian associations were formed, initially tn Rome towards the end of the 16th century and later in other countries, including England in the wake of the fresh blossomming of church and court music in the Restoration under Charles II, since the founding of the London St. Cecilia Society in 1683. The anthem as the preferred genre of courtly festive and homage music was transferred to the Cecilian feast. The writing and composing of Cecilian odes became a favourite task in English court circles attracting such great composers as Purcell (l692) and Handel, and such insignificant ones as Jeremiah Clark and Thomas Clayton. The continuity of the ode to St. Cecilia as an "institution" surpassing all political changes is clearly underlined by the two works which the greatest English poet of that epoch, John Dryden. wrote for the 22nd Novembre. The "Ode for St Cecilia`s Day" was written in 1687, two years after Dryden's conversion to Roman Catholicism and at the height of power of the Caholic King James II. "Alexanders Feast", a classical scholarly variation of the Cecilian theme, was written ten years later, that is to say after the "Glorious Revolution". For a whole century both poems were  accepted as the definitive classical Cecilian texts. Handel set both of them to music. After the considerable and lasting success (also financial) of "Alexander's Feast" which was composed at the beginning of 1736 (strangely enough not for St. Cecilia's Day) , it was natural that in the following years, difficult ones for Handel, he should also fall back on Dryden's older Cecilia text. This time, however, only the composition of a “genuine” ode for 22nd November could be considered (the work was composed from 15th to 24th September 1739) ; for Dryden's text, demanding though itis, remains well within the confines of the festive tradition. Terse, but certainly elegant, verses in a language of classical economy and power sing the praises of the effects of music and of individual instruments, naturally culminating in "the sacred organ's praise". The framework is formed by two profound verses in which "harmony" is acclaimed as a motivating and regulating principle in the plan of creation and in the plan of the Day of Judgement. It is characteristic of Handel's often underestimated intellectual calibre, as well as of the relationship with his host country, England, that his composition reaches its climax precisely in these framework sections, and that the work as a whole became perhaps the "most English" that he ever wrote. This is not altered by the fact that details - motif and harmony ideas - go back to Gottlieb Muffat's "Componimenti musicali per il Cembalo", which probably appeared in 1736.