Rest in peace.

Music by two Parisians:

Tierce en taille, and Cromorne en Taille, from the Messe de Paroisse (François Couperin)

Priere (César Franck)

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This morning, in the process of considering what music I might post here in response to the attacks in Paris last night, it struck me most suddenly that I have a responsibility tomorrow morning, akin to what those who will be preaching and leading prayers will have. Mine is but a small responsibility, but it did not until now occur to me. I am cancelling the postlude that I had planned and will play the Tierce en Taille which is linked above as a memorial prayer.

I would love to play the Franck instead, but it is well beyond anything I could prepare in one day. [Edited to add: I think that I can play it for the next choral evensong, December 6.] I do encourage you to listen to the Franck, or the Couperin. Perhaps light a candle. Certainly, pray for those who have died, and those who are bereaved, and those who are injured. And all of us, around the world, who must live this day and the next and the next after that, trusting only in the mercies and providence of God.

There have been other terrorist killings, some of them worse than this. Upon hearing the news last night, I thought immediately of the 2004 Madrid bombings, and the schoolchildren of Beslan, in the Ossetia region of Russia, also in 2004. And the Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics in 1972.

This one, last night in Paris, feels like 9/11/01. As with that event, I fear that the consequences will be profound, and not for the best.