The fresco depicts a luxurious garden surrounded by a hedge. Death enters riding a skeletal horse, firing arrows from a bow. Death aims at characters belonging to all social levels, killing them. The horse occupies the center of the scene, with its ribs visible and an emaciated head showing teeth and the tongue. Death has just released an arrow, which has hit a young man in the lower right corner; Death also wears a scythe at the side of the saddle, its typical attribute. On the lower part are corpses of the people previously killed: emperors, popes, bishops, friars, poets, knights and maidens. Each character is portrayed differently: some still have a grimace of pain on the face, while others are serene; some have their limbs dismembered on the ground, and others are kneeling after having been just struck by an arrow. On the left is a group of poor people, invoking Death to stop their suffering, but being ignored. Among them, the figure looking towards the observer has been proposed as a possible self-portrait of the artist.
A sumptuary law passed in Sicily in 1420 prohibited the wearing of expensive gold jewelry, except for rings, and declared that earrings could only be worn at particularly important celebrations. On the right, a group of richly dressed noblewomen and knights with fur clothes are entertained by a musician. The women in this group wear ostentatious necklaces and some are adorned with long, dangling earrings. The women appear to have no interest in the events and continue to socialize. A man with a falcon on his arm and another is leading two hounds represent common pursuits of the noble classes in the Renaissance.
Text
The text offers apocalyptic revelations about Judgment Day, and Mozart gives it a typically passionate, thunderous setting, full of the awe and dread of the day when the dead are to rise from their graves and face judgment by Christ, who will return to earth to separate the blessed from the accursed. This is not Christ as merciful Lamb, but in his apocalyptic aspect as severe and powerful judge.
In early Christian thought saeclum meant the current age of the world, which would come to an end with the Apocalypse and be followed by a new age. Here it is translated as "age" or "world."
Dies Irae — Allegro assai, d minor, 68 mm
Dies irae, dies illa
Day of wrath, that day
Solvet saeclum in favilla,
shall dissolve the world into ashes,
Teste David cum Sibylla.
as David prophesied with the Sibyl.
Quantus tremor est futurus
How great the trembling will be,
Quando judex est venturus
when the Judge shall come,
Cuncta stricte discussurus.
the rigorous investigator of all things!
David (/ˈdeɪvɪd/; Biblical Hebrew: דָּוִד, romanized: Dāwīḏ, "beloved one") was a king of ancient Israel. David is honored as an ideal king and the forefather of the future Hebrew Messiah in Jewish prophetic literature, and many psalms are attributed to him. David is also richly represented in post-biblical Jewish written and oral tradition and referenced in the New Testament. Early Christians interpreted the life of Jesus of Nazareth in light of references to the Hebrew Messiah and to David; Jesus is described as being directly descended from David in the Gospel of Matthew and the Gospel of Luke.
A sibyl was a woman regarded as oracle or prophet by the ancient Greeks and Romans / endowed with a spirit of prophecy.
The Dies Irae is the first of six movements of the liturgical section called the Sequence. All six movements pertain specifically to the Requiem service, unlike other movements, e.g Kyrie, Sanctus, Agnus Dei, which are found in masses that are not requiems.
The fieriest movement in the whole Requiem, the Dies Irae is full of Sturm und Drang It is Beethoven-esque in expression, Mozart presaging the “Storm and Stress”of early German Romanticism. It is no wonder Beethoven, impatient with someone who criticized the Requiem. called person an ass!
In D minor like the previous two movements, it opens without an orchestral introduction. Choir and full orchestra—woodwinds (basset horns and bassoons), trumpets and timpani, trombones, and strings—are out of the gate on the downbeat.
Coming out of the Kyrie and into the Dies Irae:
Soprano and Alto stay on D and A respectively.
Tenor moves from D up a minor third to F.
Bass stays on D but moves up one octave.
Unlike the final chord of the Kyrie, with 3 tonics and 1 dominant, and no mediant, the opening chord of the Dies Irae has two tonics, a dominant, and mediant.
Mozart give the text and impassioned, thunderous setting. The urgent allegro assai tempo brings the day of judgement closer and closer.
In the opening 6 measures there are four 4-note motifs.
These are all shaped crescendo across first three notes, the third being a first beat and the arrival point, then diminuendo or release on last note of each motif.
Syllable accent corresponds with musical emphasis: I-rae, I-lla, SAE-clum, fa-VI-lla.
MM 7&8: a concluding extension of the motif to 4 quarters with pickup < to M8(1) Sy-BI-lla.
Letter O: 2 measures, 10& 11, crescendo to third measure, m 12. fu-TU-rus for SA and B, with an emphatic interjection from Tenors.
Singers: Dynamics in this movement are super important.
The forte at the opening is the overall dynamic, but the many rapid crescendi and diminuendi, are swells and eddies to create a vortex of energy, fear and apprehension.
Letter O: quantus. This is the trickiest thing to ask of you, but so effective:
Accent on the explosive consonant, KW of quantus.
Then immediately p and a rapid crescendo through dotted half, so that it is portentous, filling us with dread and fear.
In this movement, and throughout the Requiem, the tenors and basses are the depicters of hell and damnation.
Letter O, M10 tutti "quantus ..." M11 tenors reiterate "quantus ..." against SAB "tremor est..."
Pick up to Letter R, m 4: word painting in the basses: Quantus tremor est futurus. (“How great the trembling will be”) evoking earthquake-like tremors, more short, emphatic, scary swells in the upper 3 voices.
Letter T, M57 (Cuncta stricte “rigorous”): Off-beat SA entries repeated in stretto TB to unsettle.
Structure: Letter P, M 22, is a reprise of opening 8 mm.
Letter Q, M 31, is a reprise of Letter O, M 10
When is a quarter is an eighth? When it is the last note of choir a phrase, and the choir is getting out of the way of an incoming orchestral motif.
M19, M52, M 54, M61, M65
The dramatic nature of this movement begs us to sing off-book, so that emotional contagion travels from choir to audience in a no-holds barred trajectory!
Choir, please: Stand stock still while the orchestra closes the movement in a flurry of turmoiled, frightening sixteenths.
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