Chapter 1: Funeral Music between Heaven and Earth

Contemporary funerary culture in the Netherlands is often characterised as secularised and individualised. This chapter focuses on images of heaven and angels and various versions of the Ave Maria in contemporary funeral music. How is this musical repertoire interpreted in a secularised context? This study builds on earlier research on images of heaven and angels in the context of death (Quartier, 2011; Walter, 2011, 2016a, 2016b) and demonstrates how images of heaven and angels and the Ave Maria in the context of contemporary funeral rituals in the Netherlands are related to ‘lived religion’ – how religion is ‘lived’ both in- and outside institutionalised settings – and ‘continuing bonds’ – how bonds with the deceased are not severed but continued. It also shows that the range of applicability of these concepts should not be overestimated, as musical references to heaven and angels, and the song Ave Maria, can also be regarded as ritual repertoire.