The funeral service took place at Beckenham Crematorium on Tuesday 25th February 2025 at 2pm.   

Please join us afterwards for refreshments and to share memories and stories of Chris at the Great North Wood, West Norwood.

The funeral was live streamed and is available here to watch:   

Website: https://watch.obitus.com

username: kiyu2572

Password: 622757

The service music choices

Frederic Cliffe – Symphony No1 in C minor, III Ballade
Malmö Symphony Orchestra Conducted by Christopher Fifield.

Jack Teagarden and his orchestra – Junk Man
This reminded Chris of his parents and featured one of his favourite instruments, the harp – a rarity in jazz.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart – Così Fan Tutte
Chris conducted Così during his time with Cape Town Opera. This first Act trio, “il soave sia il vento”, juxtaposes the aching beauty of the farewell with the underlying mischief of the set up in a way that feels fitting today.

Kathleen Ferrier – Blow the Wind Southerly
A friend once attended one of Chris’s talks on Ferrier and later told Anna she had bad news: Chris was in love with Ferrier which, of course, was true. This was her most iconic song.

Max Bruch – Overture, Die Loreley
In his talk “Bruch: Beyond the First Violin Concerto”, Chris championed the composer’s lush melodious writing and, as an unrepentant Romantic, he could not resist. It was conducting Die Loreley for University College Opera in the 1980s that he discovered there was no biography of Bruch – and so began his career as a music historian.

Richard Strauss – Four Last Songs
The female voice is another running thread in Chris’s musical life but, in Beim Schlafengehen, he particularly loved the violin solo. This feels like a fitting farewell.

Edward Elgar – Symphony No1 in A flat major, Lento-Allegro
The Lambeth Orchestra conducted by Christopher Fifield
Chris made it clear we were to play “the restatement of the theme at the beginning of the fourth movement and then cut to figure 129 just before the harp comes in at figure 130 – then through to the end”. This is a piece that neither Chris nor Anna could play or hear without blubbing. We could have chosen a professional recording, but Chris’s relationship with Elgar and the Lambeth Orchestra was so close that we wanted to share with you these last moments of his conducting them.

Xaver Scharwenka – Andante religioso, Op.46a
Gavle Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Christopher Fifield.