I spent most of Monday watching the television coverage of the Queen’s funeral. First, the service in Westminster Abbey, then the committal at Windsor.
If the Queen chose the hymns, then all I can say is that she had excellent taste. ‘The day thou gavest’, ‘The Lord’s my shepherd‘ and ‘Love divine, all love’s excelling’ at Westminster. Then ‘All my hope‘ and ‘Christ is made the sure foundation‘ at Windsor. Both choirs did a superb job and the anthems chosen were lovely too.
But today’s services got me thinking about how far we have come since the Queen was crowned seventy years ago. Looking at Princess Anne alone is testament to the changes in society. A woman walking with the men of the family where once it would have been totally unacceptable (and would still be in some cultures) and wearing trousers. Certainly, for an occasion like this it would have been unthinkable for a woman to wear trousers.
But that’s in passing. What I really thought about was the Catholic Church. The Master of Music in the Abbey is a Catholic. Not the first Catholic presumably to hold the post as the Abbey goes back long before the Reformation but certainly the first since. That would not have been accepted in the 1950’s. A piece by a modern Catholic composer, James Macmillan, composed especially for the funeral. The Cardinal reading a prayer along with leaders of other faiths. And then there is the music itself. How many Catholics would have known any of these hymns at the time of the coronation? And yet now we sing all of them. Hymns by protestants sung in Catholic churches!
And if you don’t sing them then you should – they are all in our hymn books. Not just ‘The Lord’s my shepherd’ which I’m sure you do sing but the others too. OK, ‘All my hope’ isn’t easy to play but the others aren’t bad. Though maybe don’t do ‘The day thou gavest’ at morning Mass on a normal Sunday. Wanting to sing it might be a good reason to have Evening Prayer once in a while though.
I’ve got to admit that I had a jolly good sing today. Especially the descant to ‘The Lord’s my shepherd’ that I haven’t sung for ages. Perhaps it’s as well my new neighbours haven’t moved in yet!
But I have to say that one of the times I’m glad I’m a Catholic is at funerals. Our funeral service isn’t made up for a particular person. It’s written down in our books and is usually a Requiem Mass. There’s something very reassuring about having a familiar service at a time of sorrow and stress. You know what is coming and, while we remember the deceased and pray for them during the Mass, it’s not just about them – or us. We remember that Jesus died and rose again for our sake so that we might have eternal life. We celebrate our requiem in the light of that “sure and certain hope”.
I’m convinced the Queen had that hope too. Hers was a quiet faith that she didn’t push into people’s faces, but she wasn’t afraid to talk about it when she felt the time was right.
I’ve got a couple of small quibbles about today’s music though. Isn’t it about time our cathedral choirs included the other half of the human race? I know all about the tradition of choirs made up of boys and men, but it would have been nice to have some women visibly singing. It doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t have a men and boys choir but at least have a choir that includes women and girls as well. If we can have women composers, and Judith Weir is Master of the Queen’s Music, then we should be seeing women choristers. They didn’t have to sing all the choir things but at least one piece would be a start.
The other thing is the amount of the service that was sung by the choir. I know it’s the tradition in Anglican services, but I really missed that involvement by the assembly that we have as Catholics when we truly sing the Mass. It’s probably a bit of a daft thing to argue about though and I’m not really complaining. It isn’t my church after all. The choirs were excellent, and the congregation obviously can’t sing the anthems they used. Maybe there was scope for them to have a part in the opening sentences for example? To be able to join in physically with the sung prayer instead of just listening to it? Now there’s a challenge to composers! Of course, our Mass and services like this are two very different things. But I’m glad we do it our way. Vatican II had a lot going for it when it encouraged the ‘full, active, conscious participation of the faithful’
Music, Liturgy and ME 