DURING the last two decades of the seventeenth century, the celebration of St Cecilia's Day, 22 November, grew to be one of the most important dates in the London musical diary. The day, or its sequel when it fell on a Sunday, was marked with a feast graced by a newly composed musical ode setting a text in praise of music and St Cecilia, and from 1693 a church service as well. The feast was the occasion for two of John Dryden's finest poems, A Song for St Cecilia's Day, 1687 and Alexander's Feast, and the greatest of Henry Purcell's odes, ‘Hail, bright Cecilia’. Despite their eventual prominence, the origins of the London Cecilian celebrations are obscure. The sudden appearance of a celebration of the patron saint of music in 1683 and its demise after 1700 are, however, consistent with general trends in musical activity and sociability in London during this period. It is possible to explain the development of a regular, semi-public observation of St Cecilia's Day by examining the activities of London musicians, especially royal musicians, in the last three decades of the seventeenth century, and by examining the tradition of annual feasts held by a range of organizations, especially county associations, in London during the same period.

A pair of musical works by Henry Purcell written for 22 November 1683, ‘Welcome to all the pleasures’ and ‘Laudate Ceciliam’, provide the first evidence of the musical observance of St Cecilia's Day in England. These two works are, in fact, rather dissimilar, and though they were written to be performed on the same day, it seems very unlikely that they were performed at the same event. The title page of ‘Welcome to all the pleasures’, published in 1684, implies that annual commemorations of St Cecilia's Day were not new in England (Plate 1.1):