Every November 22nd is celebrated as Music Day. In 1594, Pope Gregory XIII appointed Saint Cecilia as the patroness of music and musicians. However, the story behind this observance was not an easy one.
The history behind this commemoration is cruel and bloody, even though over time, the celebration of the day reminds us of the importance of music in our lives. The Ministry of Culture of the Nation detailed the story as follows:
“At the end of the second century after Christ, when the Catholic religion was not yet accepted in the Roman Empire, a devout young woman named Cecilia was forced by her parents to marry another young man from the same patrician society: Valerian. Shortly thereafter, after being respectively instructed and baptized by Pope Urban, the new husband adopted his wife’s religion. Once converted, along with his brother Tiburtius, they undertook the forbidden task of burying Christian corpses. The act brought consequences: the brothers were arrested and forced to declare that they only worshiped Jupiter. This never happened, and in the face of their refusal, they were tortured and sentenced to death.
Then it was Cecilia’s turn: she was arrested and forced to renounce the religion of Christ. However, when she declared that she preferred death rather than renouncing the true Faith, the young woman was taken to a hot oven to be suffocated and softened by the gases. But this did not happen either. Despite the martyrdom, Cecilia sang praises to God and was sentenced to death. On November 22, in the year 230, the Roman mayor Almaquio ordered her head to be cut off. And so it was.
But times changed. As is known, the Catholic religion began to be tolerated after the Edict of Milan, signed by Constantine the Great in 313, and later declared the official cult in 380, at the request of Theodosius I and through the Edict of Thessalonica.
Finally, in 1594, Pope Gregory XIII appointed Cecilia as the patroness of all musicians, and the tributes soon followed. Since then, and in various ways, every November 22nd is celebrated as Music Day.”
However, her declaration as the patroness of music is probably due to a translation error. Venezuelan conductor and music history professor Jesús Ignacio Pérez-Perazzo points out what he believes to be the two most plausible arguments for this.
Firstly, “the most likely reason for her association with music is that from a very young age, and according to the customs and traditions of Roman patrician families, Cecilia must have been initiated into and played some musical instrument, probably the lyre, the cithara, or some type of harp used by Roman society ladies.”
To this, he adds that in the aforementioned ‘Acts of the Martyrdom,’ it is written ‘Candéntibus órganis Cæcilia Dómino decantábat dicens…’, which means: ‘While the furnace was glowing hot (the baths of her house where they tried to suffocate her), Cecilia sang to the Lord saying…’
Pérez-Perazzo’s thesis is that at some point, the person who transcribed it “translated the word ‘organ’ – which at that time, in the 3rd century, was used to refer to a kind of bellows, tool, or utensil to inflate something – for the neologism that names the current musical instrument derived from the ‘hydraulis’ used by the Romans to animate the festivities of the Roman circus.” Hence the numerous paintings showing her playing the organ.
It’s a hypothesis. In any case, on November 22nd, musicians will continue to celebrate their patroness.
Source: http://www.musicaantigua.com and Ministry of Culture of the Argentine Nation.
