Important informations around the funeral of Josephine-Charlotte!
Important informations around the funeral of Grand Duchess Josephine-Charlotte!
1) TV Broadcast
RTL Tele Lëtzebuerg will broadcast live from the funeral from 10:15 am (GMT) onwards until 13:15 pm (GMT). Before the live broadcasting, from 8.50 am onwards there will be shown a report of 1990
Zwee Liewen fier ee Land. From 10:15 onwards the RTL TV team is live broadcasting live from Luxembourg city, first the funeral procession until 11:30 am (GMT) and than the requiem in the Cathedral including a state occasion. This requiem will endure until 13:15 pm (GMT)
Here is a link to the website of Luxembourg's TV channel RTL and click on "Live Stream"
:
http://www.rtl.lu/tele/
Apart from RTL Tele Lëtzebuerg the Belgian
RTL-TVI will broadcast the requiem from 11:30 am onwards (according to my informations there will be no funeral procession shown on RTL TVI, but only the requiem!) on account of the close relationship between the two sovereign houses. This broadcasting will be in the French language!
2) The course of the event
The coffin of the dead sovereign will be carried by 10 police - and army officers: of Lieutnant-Colonel Fernand Guth, Lieutnant-Colonel Gaston Reinig, Premier commissaire divisionnaire Nico Hirsch, Premier commissaire divisionnaire Marc Zovilé, Lieutnant-Colonel Yves Kalmes, Premier commissaire divisionnaire Guy Stebens, Premier commissaire divisionnaire Jean-Marie Wagner, major Robert Kohnen, Lieutnant-Colonel Roland Bomabardella, Lieutnant-Colonel Carlo Simon, major Steve Thull and major Georges Eiden.
In front of the coffin will go as "Protecteur de décorations" Lieutnant-Colonel Serge Luca.
From 11:12 am onwards the funeral procession will start at the Palace (Palais) and will move through the Rue de Reine, the Rue du Fossé to the entry of the Cathedral in the Rue Notre-Dame. (Rue...= street names
). Up to the edge of the Rue due Fossé/ Rue Notre_dame the coffine will be carried from ten non-commissioned officers (NCO) and four police inspectors, than the ten officers will undertake this role.
The requiem with state occasion will start at 11:30 am and will endure less than 75 minutes and the archbishop is Monseigneur Fernand Franck. Around him will be court aumônier Georges Vuillermoz, vicar-general Mathias Schiltz, dean of the cathedral André Heiderscheid, vicar of the cathedral Joseph Morn and the priests (vicars) of Fischbach and Colmar-Berg.
The chants of the requiem are undertaken by a chorus of 150 singer, from the "Maîtrise Saint-Cécile de la Cathédrale", the "Chorale Saint-Michel", the "Madrigal de Luxembourg" the "Ensemble vocal Berdorf", and from the "Ensemble vocal Cantina." On part of the music there is cathedral organist Carlo Hommel ("aux grandes orgues"), the Philharmonical orchestra and the soloists Vladimir Spivakov (violin), Philippe Koch (violin) Philippe Gonzalez (oboe). The conductors are Pierre Cao and Jean-Paul Majerus.
Besides "O Mamm léif Mamm" and the national anthem (you remember the post in symbols and functions from me
) there will be played the works of Johann Sebastian Bach (
Ach Herr lass dein Lieb Engelein), Georg Friederich Haendel (
since by man came death) and Felix Mendelssohn-Bartoldy (
Wohl dem, der den Herrn fürchtet)
. The final chant will be "Andante en re mineur pour clavier et orchestre" of J.S. Bach.
There will be a large screen on the "Place d'Armes" for the citizans, because the many guest of honours of nobility, politics and society have the major part of the seats in the cathedral, and this screen will send the images of the event live.
Large safety precautions are taken for this big event, 350 policemen, whose functions are to guarantee the safety for the Grand Ducal family, the honour guests and the correct order of the whole event.
Which members of other Royal houses will be present are not yet known. But certainly every Royal house will be presented!
For the journalists, photographs and technicmen of the whole Europe, there was created a media centre on the conference centre Kiem of Kirchberg (Kirchberg is a district of Luxembourg city) with ideal conditions for working for 400 persons. On Kirchberg will be also the cars of the journalists and photographs and with the shuttle transport (we say "Park and Ride" in Luxembourg) these persons will be brought into the centre of the city. This is a mean to avoid more circulation problems, but however there will be many jams in my country!
However the broadcasting cars of the TV channels are on the "Knuedler" (Knuedler= place where the palace is).
2000 white roses, 300 white orchids and 300 white azaleas were yesterday in a transporter near the chorus room of the cathedral. During the funeral they will accompany the Grand Duchess Josephine Charlotte on "her last way". Roses were the favourite flowers of the Grand Duchess and white was her favourite colour...
PS: This text was published in German in my newsper Luxemburger Wort and I translated it in English!
