how to commemorate 370 people

I sang Fauré’s Requiem at an All Souls’ Day service and was told afterwards that some 370 of the faithful departed had been commemorated by name at it. All Souls’ Day does seem to have caught on in the Church of England in recent years, at least round here. My usual church had a service for the first time that I can remember, and clearly people felt a need to add names in quantity to the list that was read out.

I notice that 9 years ago I was already running out of things to say about Fauré’s Requiem in this blog, but I can at least reflect on its popularity. I’ve sung it half a dozen times on November 2nd in this church, the first time being in 1999, and almost always with the same soloists and most of the same singers. It is very familiar to most choral singers and the organ part as far as I can tell is not hugely demanding, and there aren’t actually so many really high quality pieces of which this can be said. No wonder it is popular. (We used way back to sing the Duruflé Requiem at All Souls as well, and the mystery of the missing copies seems to have been resolved. They were on long-term loan from a local school, but were eventually returned to it.)

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