Discussion topic: music at funerals. I'm good friends with the associate organist at the local Episcopal Cathedral here, who only has the Hymnal 1982 in the pews. If somebody requests "Eagle's Wings" for a funeral, they can, quite gracefully, say that that hymn isn't in their hymnal, and circumnavigate an occasion for questionable taste. But is a funeral an opportunity to do that? At my parish (Saint Peter's Catholic Church in Columbia, South Carolina), our pastor directed me that our funerals are an "offer it up" moment, where if the music is in one of our hymnals, or even in the realm of Christian hymnody, we can offer it up, and do, with as much dignity as we can muster. I'm leading a string quartet and a small semi-pro choir doing four excerpts from Fauré's REQUIEM (my choice) along with Schubert's "Ave Maria" (choral arrangement from Oxford's Weddings for Choirs), "Here I am, Lord" (descant from High Praise 2); a setting of O Waly Waly and The Prayer of Saint Francis (descant by Martin Neary, a la Princess Diana's funeral): those pieces were the family's choice, but I found the arrangements because they're just regular people (who donated one of our two social halls), not musicologists or liturgists (thank God for small favors). The outcome in our situation: professional musicians are getting employed, a major work (albeit it truncated and modified) is getting some air-play in a liturgical setting, and the family is being comforted in a time of need. Discuss.
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