FUNERAL MUSIC

It's easy to defer things which have a limited time available for action and this thought prompted me to write the following as a phone call to my nearest and dearest survivor;-

FUNERAL MUSIC

Hi,
I've just come from the hospital, not good news I'm afraid, so I thought I'd give you a ring to remind you of the arrangements we discussed and I just remembered that we didn't mention music and I thought I'd better give you some idea of what I'd like, not that I'll hear it of course. You know I'm not one for church music or churches for that matter but for a start perhaps the first piece on that CD 'Officium' by the Hilliard
ensemble which sounds suitably solemn and religious and earthbound until Jan Garbarek's soprano sax soars above them like a soul's release into the heavens which I hope may be the case and it could be a moment for everyone to meditate on life and death and all that stuff.You can borrow it from the library if you you don't have a copy, I seem to have lost mine, did I lend it to you? Then for a bit of nostalgia the most aching yearning piece of music that I know, the fourth movement of Mahler's fifth which he wrote for his wife Alma.(We won't say any more about her will we?) Then there's Sibelius one and two not forgetting the fifth and I couldn't leave out Beethoven could I? the Eroica, the Emperor not forgetting the violin concerto and perhaps some Bruch. Then for a bit of variety that recording of 'Baillero' from 'Songs of the Auvergne' sung by Victoria de los Angeles it should be in the bureau, second shelf  I think if I didn't lend it to you and what could be more perfect than 'E Lucevan le Stelle' where Cavaradossi is waiting to be executed and sings of his life and love of Tosca, there's a tape of the Callas recording in the rack with di Stefano singing the aria or the other with Carreras and---what? -- they only allow 5 minutes between cremations!!!!! Are you sure??
In that case we'd better have Peggy Lee singing 'After You've Gone'.