Depart in Peace

Well-chosen music is an essential adjunct to the dignity and reverence of funerals and acts of remembrance, comforting those who mourn, and shining light upon the personality of the departed person.

Among these fifteen new arrangements, organists will find a wealth of material from which to select the right piece appropriate to the occasion. There are classics such as Mendelssohn’s O rest in the Lord and Handel’s Dead March from Saul, romantic masterpieces like Elgar’s Nimrod and Mahler’s Adagietto, as well as a contemporary favourite, Candle in the Wind, which featured so memorably at the funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales.

A leading arranger and teacher for the organ, John Norris has also included his own Improvisation on Brother James’ Air, an arrangement of Sibelius’s Finlandia (‘Be still, my soul’), and a novelty item The Broken Melody by Auguste van Biene. The collection concludes, appropriately, with Stanford’s uplifting Nunc Dimittis from the Evening Service in C.