# Post Mortem Music



## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

What music would you like to have played at your funeral and/or at the funeral parlor where you are laid out. 

Me: Brahms German Requiem for the funeral parlor and the resurrection part of Handel's Messiah for the actual funeral, such as:

I Know That My Redeemer Liveth 
Behold, I Tell You A Mystery
The Trumpet Shall Sound 
O Death, Where Is Thy Sting? 
But Thanks Be To God 
If god Be For Us, Who Can Be Against Us? 


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NOTE: Thread inspired by Shangoyal's thread "Last Piece of Music."


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

No music! No ceremony! No words at all! Just cremate my putrifying body and be done with it.

I don't have all day! Short, sweet and mercifully pithy.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

hpowders said:


> No music! No ceremony! No words at all! Just cremate my putrifying body and be done with it.
> 
> I don't have all day! Short, sweet and mercifully pithy.


I also would rather not dither. Just one question is allowed when I pass on: Paper or plastic?


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## quack (Oct 13, 2011)

Extreme Noise Terror


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

quack said:


> Extreme Noise Terror


That would have been my second choice if "no music at all!" wasn't available.


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## GioCar (Oct 30, 2013)

Honestly I don't care...


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## Morimur (Jan 23, 2014)

So long as it's a fried chicken themed funeral, I am fine with everything else. Yum.


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## Bulldog (Nov 21, 2013)

I'm going to have a Vikings funeral. Just play me some Wagner.


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## Don Fatale (Aug 31, 2009)

It certainly won't be anything religious for me. But as a person of (IMHO) culture and good taste, I'd like whoever comes to my humanist biodegradable funeral service to enjoy some music before they go to the pub. Something nice by Schubert or Beethoven would do fine.


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

If you don't care what is played at your own funeral, then tell us what you would like to hear at someone else's funeral.


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## Morimur (Jan 23, 2014)

*Witold Lutosławski: Muzyka zalobna (Funeral Music)*

A downer no doubt but beautiful.


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## Blake (Nov 6, 2013)

It's funny to plan for something that you will have no participation in whatsoever. Our minds are nuts.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

GioCar said:


> Honestly I don't care...


A refreshingly intelligent post. I knew if I would just be patient....


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## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

Funerals are for the people remaining not the remains. They may choose whatever they want to hear. I would however caution it would dishonor me greatly to play anything remotely resembling country. (English or Celtic folk is fine; I'm referring to the fake Americana stuff.) American gospel would be a bit egregious too. No Amazing Grace please, not even with bagpipes - although a recording of Chris Squire performing it on bass and bass pedals is a whole different story.

For my mother's funeral among other things we played Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 8, "Pathetique," movement 2 with the rowdy bits edited out. It went over really well.


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## KenDuctor (Mar 7, 2014)

Just don't play Pditty. I'll start rolling over immediately!


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Weston said:


> Funerals are for the people remaining not the remains. They may choose whatever they want to hear. I would however caution it would dishonor me greatly to play anything remotely resembling country. (English or Celtic folk is fine; I'm referring to the fake Americana stuff.) American gospel would be a bit egregious too. No Amazing Grace please, not even with bagpipes - although a recording of Chris Squire performing it on bass and bass pedals is a whole different story.
> 
> For my mother's funeral among other things we played Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 8, "Pathetique," movement 2 with the rowdy bits edited out. It went over really well.


I've gone to many funerals and the older I get, the more I've gone to and not once did I hear any special music performed outside the context of a typical Protestant, Catholic and Jewish funeral service.

"Special music" to honor the deceased is usually reserved for dead presidents, popes, kings, queens and princesses, where I come from.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Lope de Aguirre said:


> So long as it's a fried chicken themed funeral, I am fine with everything else. Yum.


Let me know when it's scheduled. I'm in!!!!


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## brianvds (May 1, 2013)

hpowders said:


> No music! No ceremony! No words at all! Just cremate my putrifying body and be done with it.
> 
> I don't have all day! Short, sweet and mercifully pithy.


I'm inclined to agree. I always tell my family and friends: I don't do funerals. Or weddings, if I can help it (I can't quite work out which of the two I find the most depressing).

Therefore I won't attend my own funeral either.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

brianvds said:


> I'm inclined to agree. I always tell my family and friends: I don't do funerals. Or weddings, if I can help it (I can't quite work out which of the two I find the most depressing).
> 
> Therefore I won't attend my own funeral either.


I already told my nearest relative-no funeral, no guests; cremate as quickly as possible. Don't "keep me". I'm no longer there.

Nice and pithy. Just the way I would have liked it.


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## Serge (Mar 25, 2010)

Some Chopin perhaps. Customary in my country, anyway.


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## Morimur (Jan 23, 2014)

Serge said:


> Some Chopin perhaps. Customary in my country, anyway.


You're Polish or French?


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

hpowders said:


> "Special music" to honor the deceased is usually reserved for dead presidents, popes, kings, queens and princesses, where I come from.


So pretend you are a king or a pope, or whatever you want to be, and then what music would you want played?

It's all in fun anyway. I don't think any of us is actually going to request special music for our funerals.


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## GioCar (Oct 30, 2013)

Classical music is already well exploited for funerals... If I have to go to funerals I'd prefer to hear something different. 
I do like very much the New Orleans Jazz funeral, but it would be a bit "out of place" for my decease.

Being in fun, I'd then write on my will to play this










One song at the attendees' choice


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## brotagonist (Jul 11, 2013)

I'd definitely want to avoid pop music. It is totally clichéd.

Beethoven's Ninth would be nice, but I am sure it has been used often. It might be clichéd, but it's got class! Now, how about Carter's Bubbles Symphony? That suggests dissolving upward (hopefully :lol: ) into the ether... or something by Messiaen, such as Des Canyons aux Étoiles or Et Exspecto Resurrectionem Mortuorum? There's also Éclairs sur l'Au-delà. Of these, I think I prefer the canyons.


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## rrudolph (Sep 15, 2011)

The final scene of Wozzeck (but with the gender in the lyric changed so the kids are singing about me instead of Wozzeck's mistress).


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## Chris (Jun 1, 2010)

For the last two years I've been dithering over a post-Chris project which I've called Dad's Demise. The plan is to document everything the family needs to know on my departure. It all exists in my head. Dad's Demise is a slimline yellow folder (for ease of location) containing my last will and testament, financial details, location of share certificates, contact details for utilities, instructions on death registration, internet passwords.....etc etc......and funeral arrangements.

But apart from making some notes on Microsoft OneNote, Dad's Demise hasn't got off the ground. I haven't even bought the yellow folder.

To answer the specific question, Dad's Demise section 4.3.1 will ask for well known Christian hymns, yet to be decided. Section 4.3.2 will specify my headstone inscription, also undecided at present.

A little postscript probably only relevant to UK readers. One of the few things I have done some preparatory reading on is the Last Will and Testament. You can put funeral directions in your will, in which case they are binding. Or, you can put them on a separate sheet, in which case they are only advisory. *BUT*, if you physically attach that sheet to the will (e.g. by stapling) it invalidates the whole will.


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## Jos (Oct 14, 2013)

I wouldn't mind a live stringquartet playing Mozart KV428 and maybe some Schubert for some "afterlife chique". Friends and family hanging around the coffin, talking about me, remeniscing, and getting increasingly drunk. Too bad I'm only the host at that recital.....

Cheers,
Jos


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## Muse Wanderer (Feb 16, 2014)

If it was for me I would first put Beethoven's eroica second movement ... the transcending climax is spellbinding.

Wife can't stand classical despite attempts at brainwashing experiments! She may be swayed by a Chopin nocturne so I'll pick for her sake op27.

My daughter, still a toddler, is slowly acquiring quite a fine taste in music. It started in utero! She may well like one of my favourite cantatas by Bach that was actually written for funerals:

BWV106 Gottes Zeit ist die allerbeste Zeit (God's time is the very best time)
The starting sonatina is heavenly...


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Florestan said:


> So pretend you are a king or a pope, or whatever you want to be, and then what music would you want played?
> 
> It's all in fun anyway. I don't think any of us is actually going to request special music for our funerals.


The final scene of Beethoven's Fidelio of course, if not to honor me, to show these idiot relatives of mine a taste of the glorious music they have been missing.

If that wasn't available, then any performance of Beethoven's Leonore Overture #3 conducted by Toscanini.
Same deal; to show the half-wits a taste of the glorious music they have been missing.

I would be making my exit performing a good deed.

I would also insist that the exit doors be locked, so they would have to sit through the entire piece, like it or not!


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## senza sordino (Oct 20, 2013)

We played jazz at my uncle's funeral, he was a total jazz fan. Lots of George Shearing, his favorite pianist.


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## Jos (Oct 14, 2013)

I lost a friend a very long time ago, he was only 20, I was 19, so that's 30 years ago. Carcrash that killed him and his dad. A terrible accident. At the funeral they played Barry Manilow's "Mandy". I really can't stand Barry "ff-ing" Manilow, but every time I hear that song I get tears in my eyes, to this very day.
Select your funeralscores well, folks 

Cheers,
Jos


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

My family think I'm still an Evangelical Christian (I don't want to frighten my mother so they're going to go on thinking that as long as she's alive) so if I died now, we'd have the good old-fashioned hymns: 

- When the Roll is Called Up Yonder
- Amazing Grace 
- In the Garden 

But most importantly by far, my favorite old classic: 

- The Old Rugged Cross 

All four verses, baby, no skipping the third. And standing throughout. That's a masterpiece of spirituality.


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## Cosmos (Jun 28, 2013)

Bach's Chaconne. Any rendition of it would do. It's somber, nostalgic, and introspective, and not extravagant.


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

science said:


> - In the Garden


How about this In The Garden:


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## Huilunsoittaja (Apr 6, 2010)

science said:


> That's a masterpiece of spirituality.


To heck with spirituality. I want a relationship! :tiphat:

I'd probably have Fairest Lord Jesus at my funeral. I love the tune, but I also love the words. I want it for my future wedding anyhow, when that comes Lord-willing.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

The _Gothic Symphony_ of Havergal Brian. I'd have to wake up just to make it stop.


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## Marschallin Blair (Jan 23, 2014)

> Woodduck: The Gothic Symphony of Havergal Brian. I'd have to wake up just to make it stop.


No snooze-button addiction there.


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## DeepR (Apr 13, 2012)

You know what, I'll let others decide.


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## Marschallin Blair (Jan 23, 2014)

DeepR said:


> You know what, I'll let others decide.


That's what I try to do; only, I just can't seem to oblige others deciding for _myself_. Ha. Ha. Ha. Ha._ ;D_


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Woodduck said:


> The _Gothic Symphony_ of Havergal Brian. I'd have to wake up just to make it stop.


Well, that might give the living in attendance a painful glimpse of something like to 'eternity.'


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

science said:


> My family think I'm still an Evangelical Christian (I don't want to frighten my mother so they're going to go on thinking that as long as she's alive) so if I died now, we'd have the good old-fashioned hymns:
> 
> - When the Roll is Called Up Yonder
> - Amazing Grace
> ...


Good God! I have risen out of that same tradition, have stood through every bloody verse of every one of those those hymns, and have laid my trophies down innumerable times hoping for that crown! One Sunday morning, a girl in my Sunday school class named Christine, who had a hopeless crush on me, actually accompanied me on the glockenspiel as I played _In the Garden_ on the piano while the church ladies wept in their pews. Unforgettable! Sadly, no tape of that epoch-making performance exists, the dew is no longer on the roses, and He no longer tells me I am His own.

But my mother accepts me just as I am.

Without one plea.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

Huilunsoittaja said:


> To heck with spirituality. I want a relationship!


Whatever man. It's semantics, _at best_.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Huilunsoittaja said:


> To heck with spirituality. I want a relationship!


You want a relationship at your funeral? Does the other party know how you feel?


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## carlmichaels (May 2, 2012)

Any of my family will know enough to avoid somber/melancholy and I would hope something less cliched than Amazing Grace. I would prefer classical, but since most won't recognize the pieces or be able to hear them due to the din of conversation, it doesn't matter much.


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