In the morning I listened to the Vaughan Williams ceremony in the Abbey.  First his Dives & Lazarus variants.  I had never heard them - they are echt V.W., with that power of imaginative invention, phrase growing from phrase like rose-wands.  Then the Bach Con. for 2 fiddles. The slow movement at the slowest tempo I have ever heard, ripe for eternity.  Then the Sons of Morning pavane.

Then the funeral itself, Croft, Ps. 104 (bless it!) and Greene's extraordinarily moving & accomplished (better than accomplished - coherent) Lord, let me know thy end.  V.W.'s choice.  His ravishing O taste & see before the ashes were taken to the North cloister, and finally his Coronation All People - sung soberly, almost sotto voce, till the last verse with those exploding trumpets with their air of going off in the wrong key. Valentine came back from Dorch. in time to hear the last half. And the BBC delayed the weather & news.  Almost as grand as an Abbey burial itself.