Requiem Aeternam ...

The extraordinary requiem altar frontal of All Saints' Inveraray was in use today as the St Maura Singers (three of us; we've sung together since 1967 or thereabouts) travelled there to sing Byrd's  Mass for Three Voices at the Eucharist celebrated every year on Remembrance Day (or at least during the weekend of Remembrance Sunday) at the behest of Duke Niall who required it to be done after witnessing the suffering brought to his people by the Great War.

It's one of these occasions when you can't believe you're doing this thing - the drive is quite bendy, and always takes longer than you think; the keyboard we take with us instead of risking the resident whatever-it-is takes time and care to set up; there are no choir stalls and very little space; the walls appear to be crumbling in the damp and every time you move you acquire a patina of sandstone dust. But Fr Simon's sermon was just right: the conjuring up of the hell that the combatants in any war find themselves in, the requirement that politicians should be forced to watch all 26 episodes of The Great War before ever they enter parliament - these are all ideas that I can say Amen to. And as for the Byrd mass - it's perfection, and we've sung it together from the beginning of our time together. We were appreciated, and we were fed.

A good day, despite the occasion.

Oh - there was snow on the hills...