Set me as a seal upon thine heart

Not sleeping tonight, for some reason, so thought I might as well write down the music I'd choose for my funeral. Here's an initial shortlist.

1) Dinu Lipatti playing his arrangement of Bach's "Jesu, joy of man's desiring" (second choice: Myra Hess's version)

2) Part, "Spiegel im spiegel"

3) Something by Mompou - almost any piece of his piano music

4) Purcell, "My beloved spake" (having heard Hadley's setting in Christ Church two days ago, I couldn't help comparing it to Purcell's. Not a fair comparison. Purcell's setting of "For lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone" is so ravishing that it makes any other setting of these words virtually inconceivable.

5) Howard Skempton's "Well, well, Cornelius" (wonderfully recorded by John Tilbury)

I guess my final choice would be the Lipatti and Skempton. Though perhaps the Skempton would be inappropiate for my funeral as it's a memorial pice for someone else (the composer Cornelius Cardew).

Anyway, as I'm thinking of it, here's Purcell's text from the Song of Songs:

My beloved spake, and said unto me, Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away.
For, lo, the winer is past, the rain is over and gone;
The flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land;
The fig tree putteth forth her green figs, and the vines with the tender grape give a good smell. Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away.
My beloved is mine, and I am his.

(Song of Solomon, 2:10-13,16)

And thinking of the Purcell there comes to mind Messiaen's repeated setting in Psalmodie de l'ubiquite par amour (the third of his Trois petites liturgies de la presence divine), of the words

Set me as a seal upon thine heart.