The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1875-02-13 00:00:00

THE FU.NERAL OF SIR STERNDALE

BENNETT.

On Saturdaylast, Sir Sterndale Bennett was buried in
Westminister Abbey. The Times, in noticing the funeral
of the gifted composer, says:—The roll of those to whom
having in life attained eminence in the world of music,
has been paid in death the last honour that England
has it in her power to bestow on her departed worthies
is not, perhaps, a very large one, but to this list it has
seemed good that the name of Sterndale Bennett shall
be added. And not from his brother artists alone has
this tribute arisen. A glance down the list of names
to whose appeal the ceremony of which we write is due
will show many, great indeed and distinguished in their
own peculiar paths, but with whom the tie which
bound them to the dead man can have been but the
tie of friendship, or that generous recognition of merit
which merit is ever ready to bestow. And from the
numbers which thronged the doors of the Abbey
long before the appointed hour, no less than from the
long line of carriages which followed the hearse, the
popular feeling on the subject might have been
gathered. The people will always assemble at a great
funeral ceremony, but it wasimpossible not to see that
the feeling which prompted the crowd of Saturday last
was no common feeling. Of those more intimately
connected with Bennett, whether by art or only by
friendship, there was, of course, a great gathering.
There were members from all the Societies of Music,
not only from those of our own country, but of France
Italy and erermany, and with the carriages of those
who desired to do honour to the memory of the man
who has been laid in Westminster Abbey it was
pleasant to see those of the Queen and of her two elder
sons.

A certain number of privileged persons were ad-
mitted to the choir, but they represented but a ',tithe
of those who filled all the available space within the
Abbey. There that crowd which, though, perhaps,
a natural, is sometimes an irksome consequent of all
such ceremonies is not out of place. The building
lends itself to the marshalling of large bodies of beople,
and to the maintenance of an order which under such
circumstances it is not always easy to preserve. On
the day of which we write, as, to the solemn strains of
the choir, the long procession, headed by the white
robed choristers, moved slowly, up the narrow path-
way which led through the dense dark-clad throng to
the altar rails, the old Abbey presented a sight such
as, perhaps, could be seen nowhere outside its walls.
It was on the stroke of noon that the procession
reached the gates of the Abbey. More than 30 car-
riages, including the mourning coaches of the family
and of friends, followed the hearse. These were those
of Her Majesty and of their Royal Highnesses the
Prince of Wales and the Duke of Edinburgh, of
the Bishop of Glocester and Bristol, of the Earl
of Dudley, Sir Julius Benedict; carriages containing
deputations from the University of Cambridge,
where Bennett was Professor of Music, from the
Royal Academy of Music, of which he was Principal,
from the Philharmonic Society, from the Royal
Society of Musicians of Great Britain, and from the
German Athentim. At the West door they were
met by the Dean of Westminster and Canon Conway,
and thence the procession passed up through
the choir to the Sacrarium, while the choristers sang
to Croft and Purcell's music, and to the accompaniment
of the organist, Mr. Tune, the opening sentences of
our Burial Service. At the bier was given Purcell's
burial chant from the 90th Psalm, and then was read
the Lesson by Canon Conway. Afterwards followed,
with peculiar propriety, the anthem, "God is a Spirit,"
one of the deceased musician's best compositions, taken
from his cantata, The Woman of Samaria, and per-
formed in a manner most worthy of the subject and of
the occasion. By the grave side the service was taken
up by the Dean himself, and, when the last words
had been said, the choir broke out again with
Handel's famous anthem, "His body is buried in
peace ; " and, finally, as the crowd passed away by the
grave where lay the oaken coffin covered with flowers
and funeral wreaths, the organ pealed forth the
grandest of all music of which we know—the "Dead
March "in Saul. In the north aisle, where lie those
masters of music who have been held worthy of West-
minster Abbey, is Bennett's grave. Here, by Croft
and Purcell, by Samuel Arnold, and by Blow, Master
of the children of the Chapel Royal for 37 years, from
the days of Charles 11. to those of Queen Anne, rests
the body of him who, but a few short days since, we
called the first musician of our day. [The Times then
gives a long list of the representatives of the different
ziocieties of Music, and the distinguished persons who
were present to pay a last tribute to the memory of
this eminent composer.'