Geruststellende klanken: Muziek en crematierituelen

COMFORT MUSIC: MUSIC AND CREMATION RITUALS
The crematorium is a ritual place where people meet to grieve and take leave of the deceased. The rituals in the crematorium are the last stage in a ritual sequence intended to enable the surviving relatives to say farewell to their beloved deceased. As a place, the crematorium is determined by the architecture, the furniture, the flowers, candles and other ritual objects. Besides these material objects, which involve the eyes and the sense of smell, there is also music entering through our ears and able to touch us on a profound level. Music is an important element in the cremation ritual. In this article, I explore the crematorium not from a ritual or architectural perspective, but from musical perspective. Research questions are: 1. how can music console the listener; 2. what is the music that is played in crematoria and 3. does this music console the participants to the ritual or does it have other effects? As a source I will make use of the playlist of the Crematorium in Tilburg (the Netherlands). Main conclusion of this article is that the music as part of cremation rituals can be characterized as Romantic, comfort music.