Funeral Sentences and Music for the Funeral of Queen Mary

The last couple of days I have been a little ill and I didn't think I would be able to finish my comic page Thursday as is the custom. But today I got to work and has been drawing all day making a nice page for tomorrow. I did not have any painkillers in the house so I have gotten through with the help of lots of tea and lots of music.

One of the pieces I have listened to was inspired by a question @artsyhonker had in her last (and first) post: What's one of your favourite pieces of choral music? which is always hard for me to answer, so I found three examples and stopped before I filled up the blockchain.

But the first one that came to mind was Henry Purcell's Funeral Sentences and Music for the Funeral of Queen Mary a piece that is actually partly known to many people, because of the stately funeral march that is played between the songs. I am sure you will know when you listen to it. (write it in the comments)

The funeral music was to be one of the last pieces the composer wrote and one of the piece called Thou knowest, Lord was played at his own funeral the same year as the funeral of the queen.

Copper engraving showing the funeral procession (from the V&A Museum website)

The lyrics was taken from a prayer book, and have all the pius spleen you could ask for - also called Vanitas - best summed up by Hamlets mother (In Shakespears Hamlet), where she says: "all that lives must die, Passing through nature to eternity".

Here you can see the lyrics if you can concentrate about such things when listening to true beauty.

1

• Man that is born of a woman
  hath but a short time to live,
  and is full of misery.
  He cometh up, and is cut down like a flower;
  he fleeth as it were a shadow,
  and ne'er continueth in one stay.

2

• In the midst of life we are in death:
  of whom may we seek for succour,
  but of thee, O Lord,
  who for our sins art justly displeased?

• Yet, O Lord, O Lord most mighty,
  O holy and most merciful Saviour,
  deliver us not into the bitter pains
  of eternal death.

3

• Thou knowest, Lord, the secrets of our hearts;
  shut not thy merciful ears unto our pray'rs;
  but spare us, Lord most holy, O God most mighty.

• O holy and most merciful Saviour,
  thou most worthy Judge eternal,
  suffer us not, at our last hour,
  for any pains of death, to fall from thee. Amen.