It’s finally October, and as the leaves change and the air turns colder, we’re getting in the mood for the beloved fall holiday Halloween. Although you may have already curated a list of spooky tunes for yourself, you might be interested to know that the tradition of spooky music goes back for centuries to a plainchant written in the 1200s. This haunting melody, known as the Dies Irae, has frightened and enthralled listeners for centuries, establishing itself as a harbinger of death and doom from Medieval times until today.
The Origins
Dies Irae was written by the Franciscan monk Thomas of Celano in the early 1200s. Translated as “Day of Wrath” from the original Latin, this chant was a part of the offices for the dead performed in funerals. When translated, the lyrics read:
Day of wrath and doom impending
David’s word with Sybil’s blending
Heaven and earth in ashes ending
Oh, what fear man’s bosom rendeth
When from heaven the Judge descendeth
On whose sentence all dependeth
What a frightfully ominous text! And, when combined with the somber setting of the funeral, the text and the melody cemented themselves in the minds of listeners as an ominous reminder of the inescapability of death.
The Evolution of Dies Irae
Although Dies Irae began as an everyday part of religious life, the chant became a symbolic melody in the broader culture. During the classical period, Haydn borrowed part of the mysterious melody at the beginning of his Symphony No. 103 in E-flat major, and Mozart wrote a striking setting of the text (though with a different melody) in his famous Requiem in D minor. The melody truly took on a life of its own, however, during the Romantic Era. As a reaction to the rationalism and intellectualism of the Enlightenment, the Romantic movement in the 1800s ushered in an age of fascination with the subjective experience of emotion, the sublimity of nature, and the workings of the supernatural in such a way that the culture overflowed with literature, art, and music that highlighted those themes.
In 1830, the French composer Hector Berlioz capitalized the culture’s familiarity with the Dies Irae to paint a frightening picture of death in the finale of Symphonie Fantastique “Dream of a Witches’ Sabbath.” This piece describes the composer’s vision of the woman who spurned him mocking him over his grave, and to highlight the cruelty and finality of death, Berlioz used the all too familiar Dies Irae blaring in the low brass as a symbol of his condemnation. (See 8:43 of “Dream of a Witches’ Sabbath” to hear the Dies Irae melody). After Berlioz, many other Romantic composers used the Dies Irae in their own pieces to symbolize death and doom, including Franz Liszt in his piece Totentanz (“Dance of Death”) and Camille Saint Saëns in his Danse Macabre; and in the 20th century, composers Ralph Vaughan Williams and Gustav Mahler also used the famous melody in their works.
Dies Irae Today
Although we are far removed from the original context of the Dies Irae, the theme still permeates music today. For a surprising example, look no further than the main title of Star Wars. Although the bright brassy figure evokes a sense of hope, heroism, and triumph, the theme concludes with a hint of the dangers of death represented by the opening four notes of the Dies Irae (take a listen here). Similarly, in The Fellowship of the Ring Howard Shore uses the same four-note theme (though slightly disguised) to symbolize the deadly army of Uruk-hai in the cue “The Caverns of Isengard.”
Although these examples may seem coincidental, countless other film scores have also used the Dies Irae throughout the years. Horror films like The Shining and Poltergeist used it to instill terror and dread in viewers, but even family films like It’s a Wonderful Life and Home Alone (see 1:58) used the theme in a more light-hearted reference to death. Whether to create an ominous mood or make a cheeky reference to the trend, chances are, if you watch something that hints at anything related to death, that sneaky four-note melody will be in the score.
The Dies Irae is just one example of the fascinating ways that music is a language unto itself, and to learn more about the Dies Irae, I highly encourage you to check out the following podcast on Dies Irae and its role in film music.
To learn more about this fascinating language of music, sign up for lessons with our instructors today!
- Jordan Koehlinger, Music Instructor at Vibe Music Academy
