Mercoledi Musicale

Yesterday the Christian church celebrated "Ognissanti" - All Saint - and today "tutti i fedeli defunti" - all the faithful departed - are commemorated. I've written previously about celebrations (and that is what they are) during our time in Mexico,  Poland, of my own personal sense of loss on this feast day and on the music that can bring comfort in times of that loss.

Strangely I have never found the Requiem as a ritual of sorrow but one of comfort and for a believer hope.  And amongst the most beautiful setting of the gentle invocation Pie Jesu is Fauré's for his Requiem and when it is sung the way Lucia Popp does here soar as a sweet cry to heaven.

Pie Jesu Domine, dona eis requiem. 
Pie Jesu Domine, dona eis requiem sempiternam.

Gentle Lord Jesus, grant them rest.
 Gentle Lord Jesus, grant them everlasting rest.

Perhaps it is just that time of life but there seem to be even more people that I remember with a sense of loss on this day.

For Isabella, Albert, Joe, Frank, Deb, Steven, Linda, Jamie, Bill, Ryan, John, Lawrence and all those I have loved and lost.


02 novembre/November - La Commemorazione dei defunti