Excellent post, RousP. I was interested by the use, more than once, of dirige. The Dirige in the Sarum Use (the form of the Latin mass used in pre-Reformation England) was a psalm (I forget which one and am too lazy to go get a book that would tell me) which was chanted or sung, to a solemn tune, at a funeral mass. Hence, the word dirge, meaning a slow and solemn or sad piece of music.