The music played at the Queen’s state funeral harked back to the happier occasions of her marriage to the Duke of Edinburgh and her coronation. Many of the pieces were chosen because of their special significance both to the Queen and to Westminster Abbey, where thousands of mourners gathered for the funeral.
Among the hymns were The Lord’s My Shepherd, which was sung at the Queen’s wedding to Philip in the abbey in 1947. The anthem O Taste and See was written by Ralph Vaughan Williams, whose ashes are also buried in the church, for the Queen’s coronation in the abbey in 1953.
Another hymn at the service had a royal connection: Love Divine, All Loves Exceeding was sung in an arrangement first heard for the Prince and Princess of Wales’ wedding in 2011. The Queen’s Piper helped close the funeral with a rendition of the traditional piece Sleep, Dearie, Sleep.
