Sacred Songs of East & West / Changing Nature of Funerals

An Anglican vicar has caused outrage by blogging about his unhappiness with funerals where traditional liturgy is replaced with pop music and what he calls the "platitudes of sentimental and secular poets". He's unhappy at the way he sees the Christian faith being marginalised at funerals, even when a priest is officiating. He stands in the crematorium "feeling like a lemon," he wrote. How justified are his fears that God is being edged out? And what of the question he believed must be faced - What are funerals for?

In this week's "All Things Considered" (Broadcast on Sunday 25 October at 8.30 am, and repeated Wednesday 28 October at 6.30 pm) Roy Jenkins is joined by two Church-in-Wales priests and a humanist to discuss the changing nature of funerals.

Also in the programme we hear of an unusual musical venture which blends the early music of the church in Europe with songs from the Copts in Egypt, the ancient liturgy of Syriac Orthodoxy - believed to be the oldest Christian chant repertoire in the world - and the Islamic strains of Sufism. It's the work of the internationally renowned early music ensemble The Clerks who are joined by three singers from different Middle Eastern chant traditions for a performance of Qudduson, which means holy. Roy talks to the man behind the idea, Edward Wickham - a Fellow and Director of Music at St Catherine's College, Cambridge, who has led The Clerks since forming them in 1992, and from Syria, one of the singers, George Qas-Barsoum.