Thursday, February 14, 2008

Triple-Header

Today is not only the traditional feast day of St. Valentine (though he got bounced out of the calendar of saints several years ago), but also of the brothers St Cyril and St. Methodius, now considered the patron saints of Europe.

This fourteen-verse Hymn to the Saints Cyril and Methodius can't easily be sung to a familiar hymn tune because the English translation didn't preserve any consistent meter.

There also seems to be a Hymn in Honour of Saint Cyril and Saint Methodius written for mixed-voice chorus by Tchaikovsky which might be interesting to locate (it's not on CPDL). He seems to have been pretty crabby about writing it, so you have to wonder if it was among his best efforts.

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