Ship of Fools: Funeral of Brian Mulroney, Notre Dame, Montreal, Canada

The Mystery Worshipper

Ship of Fools: Funeral of Brian Mulroney, Notre Dame, Montreal, Canada

Beautiful funeral mass, with bilingual homily, in honour of the 1980-90s prime minister

Read the full Mystery Worshipper report here

Amanda B Reckondwyth

Beautiful report, well done. Thanks for it. But I wouldn't say the singers "performed". Surely they offered up their talents in prayer. Maybe mention the exact spots at which each song occured, e.g. "Singer A offered up Song B as the bread and wine were brought up to the altar."

Tracker

You're not a musician and you've just opened a "Can of Worms." The church, particularly RC, like to think that about "talent and prayer" and that's why they rarely pay any musician to do anything. Furthermore, the assistant organist of the Anglican Cathedral here in Toronto quit after nine months having not been paid. All those musicians at the funeral, except the granddaughter, were professionals. They were there because it was a "Union Gig" and at the end they got their cheques and left. Trust me, prayer did not enter into the equation at all, and they would be the first ones in the bar at the Queen Elizabeth Hotel! I've been a church musician for more than 40 years and see my participation in organized religion as a way to keep really lousy organists off the bench and to do penance for my own sins. When one has to deal with clergy, amateur choirs of which most can't even read music, wardens, and advisory boards yes, that to me is the hell on earth I decided to bear! Most church musicians do the job because they need the money--they hate it but they do it--and that includes J.S. Bach who had to feed 28 mouths.
Bach wrote SDG--Soli Deo Gloria--on all his scores as his personal way to communicate with God in his writing of that musical score. He loathed most of the clergy and officials at St. Thomas Leipzig--the King once interceded for him--and hated teaching Latin in the choir school but he did it for the money and his family. I hope all organists go to a heaven where there are no clergy, organs that always work, and choirs that can sight read and sing in tune!

Amanda B Reckondwyth

Yes, I am a musician, although it was not my profession. I have, however, taken money to play at weddings, funerals, and Sunday mass.

I do not begrudge anyone their livelihood. If the musicians in question took money in return for helping to speed the Prime Minister along on his Final Journey, wherever that may take him, that would be one thing. However, if they took money to let the audience -- oops, I mean congregation -- know how wonderful they were, and won't you please go out and buy my recordings and go to my concerts, then it was not a service at all, but rather a concert with ecclesiastical trappings.

If they hate their profession, that is their choice, just as it was Bach's choice to engender those 28 mouths to feed.

Bishops Finger

One really appropriate hymn springs to mind - Thine be the glory, or, in French, A toi la gloire - sung to the tune Maccabeus...

Tracker

What an excellent idea; too bad they didn't think of it. With the help of CBC, Canada could have got into the Guinness Book of Records--Bilingual hymn sung by the greatest number of people in the world!

Nick Tamen

Amanda B Reckondwyth wrote: »

Beautiful report, well done. Thanks for it. But I wouldn't say the singers "performed". Surely they offered up their talents in prayer.

Well, I’m not sure how one offers up “When Irish Eyes are Smiling” in prayer. I think “performed” is perhaps the correct verb when the singers’ offerings included “Danny Boy,” Ebben? Ne andrò lontana (“Well, then? I'll go far away”) from La Wally, or Edith Piaf’s Mais qu'est-ce que j'ai.

(And I say that as another musician who has sung for weddings, funerals and other services, sometimes for pay, all my adult life.)

Nenya

Tracker wrote: »

You're not a musician and you've just opened a "Can of Worms."

Let's avoid accusatory tones, please, and making assumptions about people we don't know.

Nenya - Mystery Worshipper Host

Nick Tamen

Nick Tamen wrote: »

(And I say that as another musician who has sung for weddings, funerals and other services, sometimes for pay, all my adult life.)

I think I probably could have expanded on this a bit. While I have never been a professional musician—church or otherwise—I do have a bachelor of music degree, and I have been very involved in church music and liturgy/liturgy planning for all of my adult life, both in churches I’ve been a member of and in a wider church context.

I’ve known and worked with lots of excellent church musicians throughout my life, and almost to a person (I can think of only one exception), they have not only avoided using words like “perform” or “performance” with regard to music in the liturgy, they have been quick to correct anyone they heard using those words about music in worship.

They also have, again almost to a person, worked well and collaboratively with clergy; when that has not been the case, it’s as likely to have been as much the musician’s fault as the clergy’s fault.

@Tracker, your experience is certainly your experience, but it’s far from universal experience, at least in my experience.

Tracker

Well, many years ago I was a union rep who had to deal with musicians and their "nasty bits" all the time and this was in churches and schools. It wasn't fun, I can tell you, when many of these people were basically living hand-to-mouth and couldn't possibly pay for a lawyer and had no idea how they were going to pay next month's rent.

Nick Tamen

As I said, I’m not arguing with your experience, @Tracker. I believe you’ve seen and experienced what you describe. But it does sound very different from my experience in the American South.

(I’m not saying church musicians are, as a rule, lavishly paid here. For most, except in large churches, it’s a second, part-time job. But the challenges you describe are quite foreign to my experience, as are the attitudes of the church musicians you’ve encountered.)