"Alexander's Feast, or the Power of Music" (1697) is an ode by John Dryden. It was written to celebrate Saint Cecilia's Day. Jeremiah Clarke set the original ode to music, but the score is now lost.
"Alexander's Feast, or the Power of Music" (1697) is an ode by John Dryden. It was written to celebrate Saint Cecilia's Day. Jeremiah Clarke set the original ode to music, but the score is now lost.
In 1683 the Musical Society of London was formed for the purpose of commissioning and performing annually an ode in honour of Saint Cecilia, the patron saint of music. Dryden had previously written another ode, "A Song for St. Cecilia's Day", for the 1687 festival. "Alexander's Feast" was written for the 1697 festival. [1]
The main body of the poem describes the feast given by Alexander the Great at the Persian capital Persepolis, after his defeat of Darius in 331 BC. [1] Alexander's bard Timotheus sings praises of him. Alexander's emotions are manipulated by the singer's poetry and music. Timotheus glorifies him as a god, puffing up Alexander's pride. He then sings of the pleasures of wine, encouraging Alexander to drink. Seeing Alexander becoming too boisterous, he sings of the sad death of Darius; the king becomes quiet. He then lauds the beauty of Thaïs, Alexander's lover, making the king's heart melt. Finally, he encourages feelings of anger and vengeance, causing Thaïs and Alexander to burn down the Persian palace in revenge for Persia's previous outrages against Greece.
The poem then moves ahead in time to describe Saint Cecilia, "inventress of the vocal frame", who is traditionally supposed to have created the first organ and to have instituted Christian sacred music. The poem concludes that while Timotheus "Raised a mortal to the skies, / She drew an angel down".
George Frideric Handel composed a choral work, also called Alexander's Feast , set to a libretto by Newburgh Hamilton, which was closely based on Dryden's ode.
Sir James MacMillan was commissioned to create a new choral work jointly by the Hallé and Cincinnati Symphony orchestras. The work, completed in 2022 and titled "Timotheus, Bacchus and Cecilia" sets the second, third, and final verses of Dryden's ode. [2]
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John Dryden was an English poet, literary critic, translator, and playwright who in 1668 was appointed England's first Poet Laureate.
Pindar was an Ancient Greek lyric poet from Thebes. Of the canonical nine lyric poets of ancient Greece, his work is the best preserved. Quintilian wrote, "Of the nine lyric poets, Pindar is by far the greatest, in virtue of his inspired magnificence, the beauty of his thoughts and figures, the rich exuberance of his language and matter, and his rolling flood of eloquence, characteristics which, as Horace rightly held, make him inimitable." His poems can also, however, seem difficult and even peculiar. The Athenian comic playwright Eupolis once remarked that they "are already reduced to silence by the disinclination of the multitude for elegant learning". Some scholars in the modern age also found his poetry perplexing, at least until the 1896 discovery of some poems by his rival Bacchylides; comparisons of their work showed that many of Pindar's idiosyncrasies are typical of archaic genres rather than of only the poet himself. His poetry, while admired by critics, still challenges the casual reader and his work is largely unread among the general public.
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Thaïs was a Greek hetaira who accompanied Alexander the Great on his military campaigns. Likely from Athens, she is most famous for having instigated the burning of Persepolis, the capital city of the Achaemenid Persian Empire, after it was conquered by Alexander's army in 330 BCE. At the time, Thaïs was the lover of Ptolemy I Soter, who was one of Alexander's close companions and generals. It has been suggested that she may also have been Alexander's lover on the basis of a statement by the Greek rhetorician Athenaeus, who writes that Alexander liked to "keep Thaïs about him" without directly classifying the nature of their relationship as intimate; this may simply have meant that he enjoyed her company, as she is said to have been very witty and entertaining. Athenaeus also states that after Alexander's death in 323 BCE, Thaïs married Ptolemy and bore three of his children. She may have risen to power as the Queen of Egypt.
Saint Cecilia, also spelled Cecelia, was a Roman virgin martyr and is venerated in Catholic, Orthodox, Anglican, and some Lutheran churches, such as the Church of Sweden. She became the patroness of music and musicians, it being written that, as the musicians played at her wedding, Cecilia "sang in her heart to the Lord". Musical compositions are dedicated to her, and her feast, on 22 November, is the occasion of concerts and musical festivals. She is also known as Cecilia of Rome.
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Timotheus was a famous aulos player from Thebes, who flourished in Macedon during the reigns of Philip II and Alexander the Great. He later accompanied Alexander in his campaigns. After his death, a story about the effect of his music on Alexander became a familiar reference point in literature on the power of music to influence emotion.
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