Funeral Service Times August 2017 June 2019 | Page 24

24 SOAPBOX
VIEW FROM THE CHOIR STALLS
A monthly feature by Briony Rawle, co-founder of The London Funeral Singers.
HOW MANY SINGERS DOES
IT TAKE TO CHANGE A
FUNERAL? OUR GUIDE TO
GETTING THE NUMBERS
RIGHT
We know that when a client asks for
live music at a funeral service a funeral
director’s head might start to spin. Where
do you start? How many singers is enough
– or too many? Can there be too many?
What about amplification, and will it need
accompaniment? We’re used to advising
FDs and clients on exactly what they’ll need
to make the music sing on the day.
HOW BIG IS A CHOIR?
When you think of a choir at a funeral
you might imagine a typical church choir,
perhaps upwards of 20 or 30 people. The
practicality and cost of this for a funeral
is a little mind-boggling, especially in a
small space, not to mention finding thirty
people who are all available on a weekday
morning. But a choir doesn’t need to be
this big if it’s made up of classically trained
JUNE 2019
professionals. It’s rare that we send a choir
of larger than 12, because our professional
singers are trained to produce a sound
strong enough to fill a large venue just as
well as a church choir, so you might need
fewer than you think.
Most music is written in four parts, two
male (bass and tenor) and two female
(mezzo and soprano). So as a rule of thumb
it’s best to book choirs in multiples of four
to balance everything and to make sure you
really hear all the glorious harmonies. There
are exceptions to this however, which we
will always advise our clients about. Below
is a guide to some popular funeral songs
and how many singers works best for each:
Schubert’s Ave Maria: originally
written for a solo voice (and this is
how it is usually performed), but there
are also lovely versions written in four-
part harmony.
Dido’s Lament: also written for one
female voice, particularly beautiful
with a string quartet to accompany.
Time To Say Goodbye: can be sung
as a solo, but was made famous as
a duet by Andrea Bocelli and Sarah
Brightman.
Panis Angelicus: We like this best as a
duet for soprano and tenor, and it will
need piano or organ accompaniment.
Ave Verum Corpus: four or eight
singers works well, but with a larger
choir than this you may lose some
of the complexity of the gorgeous
harmonies.
Sanctus and Paradisum from Faure’s
Requiem: these pieces benefit from
a six-voice choir, as there are extra
harmony lines that weave through the
piece on top of the usual four.
THE VENUE
When deciding on the size of your choir,
after looking at the music the next thing
to consider is your venue. A choir of
sixteen will probably be overkill for a tiny
crematorium chapel room, but you may
need all the help you can get to fill a huge
church space. However the acoustics can
www.funeralservicetimes.co.uk