She commented to Mary Frye that she had been denied the chance to ‘stand by her mother’s grave and shed a tear’. The friend was a young German Jewish girl called Margaret Schwarzkopf, who felt unable to visit her dying mother in Germany due to the anti-Semitic feeling at home. Mary Elizabeth Frye (1905-2004) was a housewife from Baltimore USA, when a visiting friend’s mother died, and this prompted Mary Frye to compose the verse, which she said was her first real attempt to write poetry. Originally the verse had no title, so the poem’s first line, ‘Do not stand at my grave and weep’ naturally became the title by which the poem came to be known. My favourite is the poem he uses for his Dies Irae:Ĭalamitatis et miseriae, dies magna et amara valde.Almost certainly Mary Frye wrote the famous poem ‘Do not stand at my grave and weep’ in 1932. Nonetheless it is beautiful music and wonderful to sing.
If I were to have any adverse comments at all on Eternal Light, it does perhaps come across as slightly “commercial”, slightly “popular” in the Lloyd Webber sense.
He has composed much music for films and television. Goodall is an excellent presenter and has recorded some wonderful programs on music,which are well worth listening too. I am sure he says the same to everyone who performs his works, however badly. He was kind enough to express enthusiasm for the performance but then he is probably just very polite. I do love the music and was lucky enough to perform it for Howard Goodall recently, as part of a small choir.
You can buy the original recording an Amazon: You can hear this version (or at least the Lacrymosa) on Spotify. There is a reasonable performance on Youtube but you really need to listen to the original recording by the Christ Church Cathedral Choir (Oxford). It was beautifully set to music by Howard Goodall as part of his Requiem: Eternal Light. “Do Not Stand at My Grave and Weep” is a poem written in 1932 by Mary Elizabeth Frye.
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