|
martle
|
 |
« on: 22:27:02, 02-04-2008 » |
|
Sorry, folks. This isn't in any way meant to be a morbid thread, but having been to a few funerals in recent years I have been struck by the choice of music (not always positively, but quite often so). What would/will/did(  ) you choose? Today I put on Strauss, Four Last Songs. Hadn't heard it for ages. That last one, 'Im Abendrot', to me is pretty much the most perfect musical invocation of peaceful resignation and acceptance that I know. I want that, please, if any of you are around.  We have willingly and joyfully walked hand in hand; now let us rest from our wanderings through the silent land. The valleys close in on themselves; already the sky is darker; a solitary pair of larks still soar, dream-rapt in the dusk. Come close and let them fly about; soon it will be time to sleep; let us not lose our way in this solitude. O vast, tranquil peace! so deep at sunset. How weary we are of wandering - Is this perhaps death? |
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
Green. Always green.
|
|
|
|
Il Grande Inquisitor
|
|
« Reply #1 on: 22:33:12, 02-04-2008 » |
|
The RVW Tallis Fantasia is specified in my will, along with the instruction 'no hymns', a decision strengthened by my mother's funeral last summer where I was sorely tempted to put on 'teacher face' and exhort people to sing up, I'm afraid.
The Strauss 'Im Abendrot' is, I agree, pretty perfect. Rather than have it at my funeral, I'd be quite happy to be listening to it just before shuffling off this mortal coil...
|
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
Our chief weapon is surprise...surprise and fear...fear and surprise.... Our two weapons are fear and surprise...and ruthless efficiency
|
|
|
|
richard barrett
|
|
« Reply #2 on: 22:38:09, 02-04-2008 » |
|
That Strauss piece is very special indeed, I became quite obsessed with it for a while. However, like someone else from my home town, I think I'm more of a "do not go gentle" kind of guy. This will need some thought.
At Paul Rutherford's funeral a quartet of trombones played the Red Flag, which was somehow perfect.
|
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
|
Andy D
|
|
« Reply #3 on: 22:44:27, 02-04-2008 » |
|
I don't want a funeral so the choice doesn't really arise but if anyone wants to celebrate my passing they can play something loud and noisy such as: Angels with Dirty Faces by Sham 69 How I Wrote Elastic Man by the Fall White Riot by the Clash Wild Thing by Jimi Hendrix or even Palais de Mari by Morton Feldman |
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
gradus
Posts: 58
|
|
« Reply #4 on: 22:51:22, 02-04-2008 » |
|
Perhaps Abschied from Das Lied.
|
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
|
richard barrett
|
|
« Reply #5 on: 22:51:43, 02-04-2008 » |
|
Thinking about it (it isn't at all like me not to have thought about this ever before, but I haven't), I am very tempted by the idea of Stockhausen's Trans, whose title was originally going to be Musik für den nächsten Toten (music for the next to die); it was what I listened to when I heard about his death and for me captures some kind of transition into the totally unknown.
|
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
|
BobbyZ
|
|
« Reply #6 on: 22:54:34, 02-04-2008 » |
|
Who Knows Where The Time Goes ? by Sandy Denny and Fairport Convention. Then in the tradition of the New Orleans second line, exit to Didn't He Ramble by Louis Armstrong ( or Dr John )
|
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
Dreams, schemes and themes
|
|
|
|
perfect wagnerite
|
|
« Reply #7 on: 23:02:42, 02-04-2008 » |
|
Schlummert ein, from Bach's Cantata No 82 - preferably in the recording with John Shirley-Quirk and the ASMF, a disc that moves me deeply whenever I hear it. Another piece that conveys much acceptance and peace.
|
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
At every one of these [classical] concerts in England you will find rows of weary people who are there, not because they really like classical music, but because they think they ought to like it. (Shaw, Don Juan in Hell)
|
|
|
|
George Garnett
|
|
« Reply #8 on: 23:04:44, 02-04-2008 » |
|
The Cavatina from Beethoven's Op 130 String Quartet please.
Then exit rumbustiously to "Return to Sender, Address Unknown".
|
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
|
martle
|
|
« Reply #9 on: 23:07:42, 02-04-2008 » |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
Green. Always green.
|
|
|
|
time_is_now
|
|
« Reply #10 on: 23:42:32, 02-04-2008 » |
|
Strangely (given my beliefs, or lack of them), I'm quite attracted to the idea of a church-service-like funeral. I think it's something to do with the feeling of having cycled back round to my schooldays, and also to do with the idea of traditions you can inhabit ironically (perhaps sceptically would be a better word), whereas there's often - to me at least - something slightly embarrassing about people trying too hard to choose something 'appropriate' yet non-traditional.
So I'd be quite happy with the hymn 'Dear Lord and father of mankind', which appeals to my sentimental side in its preoccupation with human frailty and imperfection, while not going too heavy on the theology. It also has a wonderful piece of grammatical virtuosity in the second verse which I always enjoy drawing people's attention to. Also, if my old school music teacher Gary Hulme is still around it would be lovely if someone would ask him to play the organ, not forgetting his wonderfully over-the-top crescendo/swell and sudden diminuendo in the final verse.
Dear Lord and Father of mankind,
forgive our foolish ways!
Re-clothe us in our rightful mind,
in purer lives thy service find,
in deeper reverence, praise;
in deeper reverence, praise.
In simple trust like theirs who heard,
beside the Syrian sea,
the gracious calling of the Lord,
let us, like them, without a word,
rise up and follow thee;
rise up and follow thee.
O Sabbath rest by Galilee!
O calm of hills above,
where Jesus knelt to share with thee
the silence of eternity
interpreted by love!
interpreted by love!
Drop thy still dews of quietness,
till all our strivings cease;
take from our souls the strain and stress,
and let our ordered lives confess
the beauty of thy peace;
the beauty of thy peace.
Breathe through the heats of our desire
thy coolness and thy balm;
let sense be dumb, let flesh retire;
speak through the earthquake, wind, and fire,
O still, small voice of calm;
O still, small voice of calm.
|
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
The city is a process which always veers away from the form envisaged and desired, ... whose revenge upon its architects and planners undoes every dream of mastery. It is [also] one of the sites where Dasein is assigned the impossible task of putting right what can never be put right. - Rob Lapsley
|
|
|
|
ahinton
|
|
« Reply #11 on: 23:43:50, 02-04-2008 » |
|
There's "no hymns, ancient or prehistoric" in my will. Left to me (which, of course, by definition it cannot be), there'd be no funeral service either, but one cannot be selfish about such things. So it would be Beim Schlafengehen from Vier Letzte Lieder (rather than Im Abendrot, wonderful though that also is), maybe Cole Porter's Every Time We Say Goodbye and something else which I'd better not mention. The Cavatina from Beethoven's Op. 130 quartet is also a most excellent choice, as might instead be the second movement of the same composer's Op. 127 one.
|
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
|
Don Basilio
|
|
« Reply #12 on: 23:51:05, 02-04-2008 » |
|
Well it is for those left behind to say, but I want a proper requiem with clouds and clouds of incense.
If we can get any decent singers (anyone here to offer?) the plainchant piece In Paradisum.
You have to have hymns to give people a chance to cry without making it obvious. I think there are far too many hymns in services, but I would like "Jerusalem the Golden" and "O what their joy and their glory must be" both translated by John Mason Neale from medieval texts (the second by Peter Abelard.) Jerusalem the Golden ends with the wonderful lines "Rejoice o dust and ashes, the Lord shall be thy part, His only, his for ever, thou shalt be and thou art."
|
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven.
A time to weep, and a time to laugh: a time to mourn, and a time to dance
|
|
|
|
ahinton
|
|
« Reply #13 on: 00:16:40, 03-04-2008 » |
|
Ashes to ashes - dust to dust - and local authority to local authority in terms of which such organisation might expect the bereaved to (a) recycle the ashes or risk censure for unwittingly indiscriminate creation thereof within a smokeless zone of their specific designation and (b) put up with the possibility that the appropriately bagged dust might not get collected for at least two weeks in accordance with economically prudent and necessary rationalising measures in respect of statutory garbage collection...
|
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
|
autoharp
|
|
« Reply #14 on: 00:40:17, 03-04-2008 » |
|
You're all so serious.
I'll have a Serbian and/or Peruvian brass band followed by some good Albanian folk music please.
|
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
|
