Music for green burial?
Puzzler
Shipmate
Please move if this is the wrong place.
We are having a Christian service at the graveside in a woodland setting ( with a church service of thanksgiving on another occasion). This is for immediate family only, who are nominal Christians, some RC, some CofE, some atheists or don’t knows, but all brought up as churchgoers and went to church schools.
My C of E vicar will choose a suitable liturgy, very probably from Wild Goose / Iona materials or similar.
There could be a portable device with amplifier and I have family who will facilitate this. But I can’t think what music to choose.
Family do not share my personal taste, traditional, classical, choral. They probably don't know the sort of hymns I will choose for the next service. They are unlikely to sing unless it is something really well known, so I will probably avoid a hymn altogether. A song perhaps, or gentle music? But “proper music.”
We are having a Christian service at the graveside in a woodland setting ( with a church service of thanksgiving on another occasion). This is for immediate family only, who are nominal Christians, some RC, some CofE, some atheists or don’t knows, but all brought up as churchgoers and went to church schools.
My C of E vicar will choose a suitable liturgy, very probably from Wild Goose / Iona materials or similar.
There could be a portable device with amplifier and I have family who will facilitate this. But I can’t think what music to choose.
Family do not share my personal taste, traditional, classical, choral. They probably don't know the sort of hymns I will choose for the next service. They are unlikely to sing unless it is something really well known, so I will probably avoid a hymn altogether. A song perhaps, or gentle music? But “proper music.”
Comments
1. It is the deceased who is being buried. I didn't know them or even who they were. What they would have liked is more important than what will not upset the family, or whether my suggestions are any use.
2. However, unless you have a brass band, a Scottish piper or the sort of sound system that will get a farmer half a mile away complaining to the Council that it's stopped his hens from laying, music to listen will be either inaudible or so thin as hardly to count as music.
3. Gentle music from a CD or a recording of someone singing Psalm 23 to a guitar may sound beautiful indoors but can't compete with the sound of even a light breeze, yet alone a noisy blackbird or a bus.
4. Likewise, trying to get people to sing if their voices sound thin to their own ears.
5. So if they are going to sing a hymn, choose something that is virtually universally known, with a really straightforward diatonic tune and no complicated rhythmical intricacies.
6. And have some people primed to sing loudly and try to get everyone to stand near enough to each other that they hear their neighbours' voices rather than their own.
7. Otherwise, perhaps leave out any music altogether. You'll still need the portable amplifier for the vicar and the tributes.
So why not a couple of Mr Puzzler's favourite pieces of music?
I second this one.
I also love ‘Going home, moving on’ with the Hovis tune, to play rather than sing, if the deceased was a Christian.
Of course, the obvious one is the one chosen at the majority of funerals I take, All Things Bright and Beautiful - no doubt many here will groan, but some of those attending might be disappointed if it isn’t there.
Butterworth: here is a good version.
MacCunn: played by a Scottish orchestra here
An outlier would be the second movement of Stanford's 7th Symphony, here at 7:30.
My understanding is that a funeral is for the living, but reflecting the life, tastes, ministry of the departed.
So definitely not ATB&B, but the other suggestions are under consideration.
That is a lovely version of the Butterworth, TheOrganist, thank you.
Mr Puzzler would request something from The Dream of Gerontius. I might see if I can sort out a suitable excerpt. Or some organ music, some Bach maybe.
I wonder if there is anything appropriate from Taizé?
MrP organised and led so many funerals for others, but has left no clues about his own.
“Jesus, Remember Me”
“Bless the Lord, My Soul”
Misericordias Domini
In manus tuas, Pater/“Into Your Hands, O Father”
Nada te turbe/“Nothing Can Trouble”
“Wait for the Lord”
Nunc dimittis/“Let Your Servant Now Go in Peace”
There are probably others I’m not thinking of right now.
You can find instrumental tracks for many Taizé songs.
https://youtu.be/Cc9a3hB99ZQ
Largo from the New World Symphony by Dvorak. Hovis tune indeed. Alternatively, the "Ee, ah'll never forget first day at 'pit. Me and me father 'ad just worked a 72 hour shift and were walking 'ome 43 mile through 'snow in us bare feet..." music
Gets chosen for a lot of weddings too. The temptation to substitute Python's "All Things Dull and Ugly" words is strong indeed.
I agree with Alan29's suggestion of a Nunc dimittis but maybe
Stanford in C or Dyson in F?
The other thing that springs to mind is O rest in the Lord from Mendelssohn's Elijah. Beautiful music, wonderful words.
Plenty of good listening here.
I'm afraid I don't know. It wasn't done in our time there, although I've sung it many times when we were back on holiday (David always played the organ and I sang in the choir if we were there on a Sunday).
Much sympathy for you on the death of your mother. Totally agree with your last couple of clauses, and in the circumstances great that you added them.
At church choir practice tonight, there were several of Mr Puzzler’s favourite hymns as it happens, and one we have had at every family funeral in recent years, which I now struggle to sing, so I’ll bear that in mind.
I also wonder if the sound provision will distort rather than do justice to the music. Mr P in fact had, somewhere, just the right device for this purpose, but we may not be able to find it. My grandson will have his own methods, no doubt involving a bluetooth speaker.
Thank you so much for this wisdom. I'm going to keep it in mind as I arrange funerals with families.
We walked through the grounds to The Lord is my shepherd, from Rutter’s Requiem.
Opening sentences, prayers and a few words about the deceased.
Ps 139 followed by Purcell’s Thou knowest, Lord, the secrets of our hearts ( as sung at HM Queen’s funeral).
A Poem.
Bridge over troubled water, vv1-2, original Simon & Garfunkel version.
Prayers
Reading : Revelation 21 v 1-7.
Prayers: The Lord bless you and keep you, John Rutter, Cambridge Singers.
Jesus, remember me, ( Taizé ).
Next I have to prepare for a Service of Thanksgiving, an easier task, I hope, as far as the music is concerned.
Me too.