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Best Use of Dies Irae

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12K views 30 replies 26 participants last post by  SONNET CLV  
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#1 ·
What are your favorites? Here are a few of mine, in no particular order:

Symphonie Fantastique - Berlioz
Totentanz - Liszt
Danse Macabre - Saint Saens
Symphony No 3 - Saint Saens
Isle of the Dead - Rachmaninoff
Symphonic Dances - Rachmaninoff
Metropolis Symphony - Daughterty
Stars and Stripes Forever - Sousa :D
Sweeney Todd - Sondheim
Hunchback of Notre Dame - Menken
Star Wars prequels - John Williams
Close Encounters of the Third Kind - John Williams
Home Alone - John Williams
Marie Ward - Elmer Bernstein
Nightmare Before Christmas - Danny Elfman
 
#2 ·
I've been thinking of doing a thread like this, since so many composers used the Dies Irae plainchant tune in their works. Rachmaninov was obsessed with it, two other works apart from those you mention that have it are his Symphony #3 and Variations on a Theme of Paganini. Its no wonder since his music is so infused with choral type harmonies and bell rhythms, even moreso than other Russian composers. His music just all the better for this pet obsession of his, I think.

I like all of the ones I'm familiar with there - Rach, Berlioz, Saint-Saens, Liszt. All of them invest the tune with their own particular creative vision.

But I'd also add a partial quotation or sort of variation on Dies Irae which is the bassoons in the opening of Haydn's Symphony #103, Drum-roll. I don't know if its just coincidence or if he actually had it on his mind when writing that symphony, but it sounds very similar.
 
#18 ·
It's also the main theme in 'Judgment Day' by The Enid on their first album 'In the Region of the Summer Stars' but trying to find a non messed-up and re-mixed or re-produced version of it is almost impossible. This live performance is okay but not a patch on the 1976 original. Meanwhile I think Berlioz has it nailed for best use in a classical symphony, though Rachmaninov's 1st symphony comes a close second.

 
M
#20 · (Edited)
Rachmaninov's is certainly the most dramatic, in terms of how it almost acts as a character in the "drama" that is his musical oeuvre. It keeps coming back, again and again, taunting the composer. But in the last movement of his final work, the Symphonic Dances, it is finally crushed and overcome.

My favourite use is in the finale (Red Cape Tango) of Michael Daugherty's magnificent Metropolis Symphony.
 
#27 ·
Here's one full of Dies Irae -- Sculthorpe's Memento Mori. "It is a piece imbued with a religious aura, rooted in a particular landscape.barren, mysterious Easter Island, with its enormous, brooding, enigmatic statues. And it is full of tunes, most notably the ancient plainchant Dies irae, which has been used by many classical composers but seldom with the blend of reverence and coloristic effectiveness Sculthorpe has achieved. It was marvelously effective music, innovative in sound but listener friendly."

 
#29 · (Edited)
The best use of Dies Irae? When that one TC member made a username with it. :cool:

I kid, of course. I haven't heard all of the Requiems, so I'm gonna have to go with Mozart and Verdi. The Verdi one is incredibly powerful, but I still like Mozart's more and not surprisingly, it was used to great effect in Amadeus.
(So was the opening of the 25th at the beginning of the film)
 
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