What Music would you choose for your Funeral?
Thu, Apr 18 2013, 12:44PM
Margaret Thatcher had chosen excerpts from the requiems of Fauré and Brahms.
At this present moment, I would choose "Tom Bowling" sung by Robert Tear (though I am not exactly a "hulk") and, because the whole of Act 3 of "Meistersinger" would not be practical (or bearable for some), "Siegfried Idyll" in the original version for thirteen instruments by members of the VPO under Solti.
Thu, Apr 18 2013, 5:51PM
#2
RE: What Music would you choose for your Funeral?
John Cage`s 4'33"
Thu, Apr 18 2013, 6:09PM
#3
RE: What Music would you choose for your Funeral?
The finale fugue from Verdi's Falstaff. Live, of course.
Thu, Apr 18 2013, 7:03PM
#4
RE: What Music would you choose for your Funeral?
I guess as I cannot (yet) choose my death, I am not in a position to choose any music for my Funeral. So, I leave it to those who may care and may know better, at the particular time. As a wise older man once said, this sort of "music" should represent the sort of the end of a life (tragic end, life cut short, a life fulfilled etc.).
However, I want to share with you the most inspired and intriguing answer to this kind of...entertaining question I have ever heard.
In a far away minor and indifferent country, there was an eminent female journalist, which was also quite famous in the field of literature, well respected in the microcosmos of her country. In an interview, a couple of years before her departure from this life, among the questions she had to entertain there was this familiar one about the "music for her Funeral" (she was a well known music lover as well). The old woman (she was already above 80) replied: I love so much Opera and Vocal Music but, above all, I adore Schubert's Ave Maria. However, don't dare to perform it. I might get up from my coffin! (By the way, her name was Maria!).
Moral: Be careful what music you chose. The deceased might not rest in peace (his/her spirit might get even excited).
Parla
Thu, Apr 18 2013, 10:51PM
#5
RE: What Music would you choose for your Funeral?
I hope that I will have continued to be an active member of a choir and that they will be able sing something apppropriate like Mozart's Ave verum corpus or some Bruckner.
CDs don't often work at funerals unless discussed properly with the person leading the ceremony.
Best wishes,
P
Mon, Apr 22 2013, 10:08AM
#6
RE: What Music would you choose for your Funeral?
Go out with a bang, right?
Mon, Apr 22 2013, 5:39PM
#7
RE: What Music would you choose for your Funeral?
Once more, I can see, Brumas, the level of damage Youtube can do.
Good luck with your "bang".
Parla
Tue, Apr 23 2013, 2:21AM
#8
RE: What Music would you choose for your Funeral?
Liszt's Heroide Funebre!
I wouldn't give a flying cr*p myself since me being dead would effectively prevent me from enjoying it - but since I'm a church organist I've got some experience in this field of business.
Latest funeral I had to play was of a person who was quite fond of Vivaldi's 4 Seasons, it appeared. Okay, seen worse taste, but they just started the cd before the service, then just stopped it in the middle of the slow movement of "Spring" when the service started. Same during the communion, where halfway the slow movement of Autumn the cd was switched off mercilessly.
Not a fan of cd's in church services anyway. Always unliturgical, unfitting and either too long or too short or too soft or too loud. If only they could ask the organist to play some light baroque music instead...