Facebook post, Bar-Ilan University, Faculty of Humanities , 31/10/2025
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Later this month, on November 21, the fourth volume of The Beatles Anthology will be released — a historic day for Beatles fans and for lovers of popular music (and popular culture in general).
The release is a triple album, packed to the brim with material that “was left on the cutting room floor” — bits of dialogue between band members and engineers, funny or strange takes, and isolated tracks that allow listeners to appreciate the band’s astonishing artistic achievement.
It’s unclear whether all Beatles fans keep a relevant almanac within reach, but it’s safe to assume that some have noticed the timing is no coincidence: the new album will be released exactly thirty years to the day after the first volume of the Anthology appeared. Some fans might also know that 27 years (minus one day) before the first Anthology came out, The Beatles (a.k.a The White Album) was released — itself issued exactly five years after With the Beatles.
It’s hard to say whether the timing of With the Beatles and The White Album — both released on November 22 — was accidental, or whether someone at the record company knew that they were aligning the release of two of the most important albums of the 1960s with St. Cecilia’s Day, celebrated by musicians in England for the past 350 years!
The tradition of St. Cecilia’s Day began (at least officially) with greatest composer in 17th-century England, Henry Purcell, who wrote a grand musical work to be performed at a banquet held on November 22, 1683, in honour of London’s Musicians’ Guild. The precedent was warmly adopted by other musicians, who began composing works for their patron saint to be performed each year on St. Cecilia’s Day.
The (rather bitter) joke among Purcell scholars is that, as a last resort to avoid composing another work for the 1695 St. Cecilia celebrations, Purcell returned his soul to the Creator one day before the concert — on the 21st of the month. On the other hand, Britain’s greatest 20th-century composer, Benjamin Britten, was born on November 22, 1913.
The forthcoming November 22 also marks 41 years since the release of Genesis’s album The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway. Did Genesis, in 1974, mean to hint that their new double LP continued the legacy of The Beatles’ double LP White Album — or were they perhaps aware of the earlier musical history tied to this date?
Anyone familiar with the history of music can hardly help but hold their breath each year as November 22 approaches, knowing that what happens on this day is either a truly historic event — or one that someone wants to believe will make history in the world of music.