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Dies Irae: The Melody of Death

  • Anastasia Susanto
  • Jan 3
  • 3 min read

What reminds you of death? Is it the flattened torso of the fly you squished between your fingers? Or perhaps it's the sight of the wilting rose you see in your windowsill. What about the falling leaves that hit your car roof, their brown bases catching your eye every second? Every single thing in our lives, no matter how minor or insignificant, leads back to one central thing: death. There’s no way to escape it. Death takes both the sinners and the saints, leaving no remorse for the wreckage laid in its path. It lurks in the shadows of your favourite shows, slipping behind every page in the book you’re reading. But most of all, death hides best in plain sight; our music.


The Dies Irae, roughly translated to ‘The Day of Wrath’, is an ancient Gregorian chant that describes Judgement Day, used today in the Catholic Requiem Mass (Rayner, 2019). Though the exact translations of the chant are often widely debated, the general consensus is that it depicts the day when Jesus comes back to Earth and splits the population in half: the damned, who are cursed to eternal flames, and the saved, who go to heaven. The monophony and unmeasured rhythm (Britannica, 2024), of the chant lends itself to a twisted, unsettling feeling deep within your bones.

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According to Neos (2022), composer Hector Berlioz was the first composer to bring it into the cultural zeitgeist with his thrilling finale of his Symphony Fantastique. From then on, the claws the Dies Irae had on composers sunk deeper and deeper. Even today, the ancient chant is still used in soundtracks in film and TV, albeit only the first four notes.


In modern day, composers are obsessed with using the Dies Irae to represent themes of death, judgement, or resurrection. A myriad of notable film scores including Citizen Kane, Metropolis, The Lion King, and Sweeney Todd unashamedly feature the Dies Irae in their work and, in Sweeney Todd’s case, is the musical melody that most other melodies in the musical is built upon (Manning, 2014). In Star Wars: A New Hope, Luke Skywalker finds his uncle and aunt dead while the Dies Irae booms in the background. There are countless examples; in fact, the list of film scores that reference the Dies Irae in some way or another is thousands of feet long.


All this to say, the Dies Irae has an extensive history spanning centuries and generations, a history that will probably only ever grow. But even with its thousands of uses in modern day culture, how effective is it really for setting up a chilling backdrop of death? How do audiences feel when confronted with the tune? Do they even notice it at all? We might not ever know, considering like a magic trick, that the illusion is shattered once you know the background behind it. Though, the one constant throughout all of this, is death is always present. Stay safe, you never know when you might take a stroll with death himself.


References:


Rayner, A. (2019) Dies irae: The Latin funeral poem that’s a movie must-have, The Guardian. Available at:

have (Accessed: 28 November 2024).


Plainsong (n.d.) Encyclopædia Britannica. Available at: https://www.britannica.com/art/plainsong-music

(Accessed: 28 November 2024).


Neas, P. (2022) Dies irae: Medieval hymn for the 21st Century, Guarneri Hall. Available at:

2024).


Manning, P. (2014) Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd: A study, Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd: A Study. thesis.


Opera, Dr. (2014) Sondheim’s Craft: Manipulating the song of death., Operation Opera. Available at:

November 2024).


Sideways (2020) How the Music Spoils Sweeney Todd (and why that’s a good thing!), YouTube. Available at:

 
 
 

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