Judgement Day

In a previous passion post of mine I talked about Mozart, one of the greatest composers ever, and one of his most famous choir pieces, the Requiem in D Minor. This peice is about an hour long and tells of death, the wrath of God, and the judgement day. Last time, I talked about the section Dies Irae, if you would like to read my previous post on this section of the work then click here. Quick recap of my last post on the subject: the piece was commissioned in the last year of his life, and Mozart didn’t write the whole thing.

This time I will be talking about the section Lacrimosa. The Lacrimosa translates to “on that day there will be tears”, or “there will be crying” depending on which translation you use and how strict you keep to the exact translation.  It is widely believed that up until the first eight bars of the Lacrimosa were all of Mozart’s original work. After that, the line is a bit hazier as to whether Mozart actually wrote them or whether his student wrote them in his style.

I really enjoy the underlying orchestral part in the Lacrimosa because the long high pitched strokes on the bow of the violin and viola mimic the crying and tears of the morning. Also, this crying can be heard in the vocal part too; there are many rests between syllables which mimics sobbing and the voices (especially soprano) take on the same quality as the strings. Furthermore, the whole section has a sorta of impending doom feel to it since it was written in a minor chord.  However, there is some slight hesitation and uncertainty (about death) in this section which is conveyed through crescendos into decrescendos, but, it is also presents it through the arrangement of the chord progressions. This is because each “step” in the

How Mozart felt writing the last bar of the Lacrimosa #dealwithit

progression allows the ear to follow it both up and down towards the next which is both a conflict AND resolution. Also, Mozart was not a very religious person so the fact the he was commissioned to write this in the first place was very ironic, but then he goes on to tell us of all of the awful things that shall happen to you at the judgement day and underlays this with minor and conflicting chords to convey the weight and awfulness of the situation, but then ends the section on a major chord with the words Amen, so its kind of like a punch in the face to the religious people there because of its almost mocking nature of it.

The Latin lyrics to this section are below and you can follow along with this video of a my high school’s performance of Lacrimosa (7:30) followed by the Dies Irea (10:30).

Lacrimosa dies illa,

qua resurget ex favilla

judicandus homo reus.

Huic ergo parce, Deus,

pie Jesu Domine,

dona eis requiem.

Amen.

That day of tears and mourning,

when from the ashes shall arise,

all humanity to be judged.

Spare us by your mercy, Lord,

gentle Lord Jesus,

grant them eternal rest.

Amen.

Image 1: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/33/Stefan_Lochner_006.jpg

Image 2: https://goodmusicspeaks.files.wordpress.com/2015/09/mozart-glasses.jpg