If the lyrics seem less than suitable or aren't to the client's taste in these things, I too would suggest doing it as a bagpipe piece, either a solo or about a quartet, tops, in most circumstances -- you don't need a sixteen-member pipe band and drummers to fill up a church with the music. A quartet can do a good job of handling both the melody line and the "seconds" -- harmony line, bagpipe-style. A rather surprisingly large selection of hymn and funerary tunes can be wrung through the great Highland bagpipe, or more quietly through chamber pipes and smallpipes: Hyfrydol, Cwm Rhondda, St Patrick's Breastplate, Slane, Bunessan, and for funerary use/resurrection Masses, variously Going Home, Amazing Grace, I Am The Bread Of Life, and Flowers of the Forest. Somewhat more remotely, The Battle Hymn of the Republic, which comes out of the pipes' nine-note compass somewhat altered but recognizable.
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