Verdi - Requiem - Dies irae (Extrait)

Giuseppe Verdi 1813-1901

I stumbled upon this tremendous video of Verdi’s Requiem earlier today and felt inspired by its stirring tones to share with you both the video and some background to this terrifying piece of music.

Verdi : Requiem - Dies irae (Extract)
Video sent by Quarouble

"Dies Irae" - from Verdi's Requiem
performed by the Berlin Philarmonic Orchestra conducted by Claudio Abbado.

I’m sure everyone knows the music of the “Dies Irae”, featured here, as it has been used for dramatic effect in many films and commercials over the years. But what’s the story behind this nightmare-conjuring thriller music?

Verdi (1813-1901) is famous of course for writing operas – his most famous offerings are probably Aida, Rigoletto and Otello. Verdi spent a good deal of his life writing dramatic music for the theatre, but later in his life he felt the urge to branch out into different genres. He first experimented with writing requiem music when his friend and guide Rossini died in the 1860s and he was moved to organise a huge collaborative composition with 11 composers to mark Rossini’s death. The work was never performed. Disappointed but not disillusioned, Verdi, who had written the Requiem’s final movement, was pleased enough with his work to keep tinkering at it for a while, when out of the blue another death occurred – Alessandro Manzoni.

Manzoni, a poet and strong cultural figure in Italy, was greatly revered by Verdi. His death in 1873 was good timing (well, not for him), as Verdi had the workings of the Rossini Requiem which, with only a little rewriting, became Manzoni’s Requiem, and all Verdi’s own work this time. The Requiem was premiered on the 1st anniversary of Manzoni’s death, in Milan and was an instant success, despite its gloomy text:

Day of wrath and doom impending,
David's word with Sibyl's blending
Heaven and earth in ashes ending
Day of wrath and doom impending

Oh, what fear man's bosom rendeth
When from heaven the judge descendeth
On whose sentence all dependeth.

(English Translation)

Verdi used a big sound – four bassoons and four trumpets, three flutes and an ophicleide, a chorus and four soloists which resound together with an incredible FFFF marking in places. The “Dies Irae” is made up of nine sections, which you can clearly see on this video. Each section has its own melodic ideas, but they are always played together seamlessly to make an impressive and profound performance.

You’ve probably heard the music in countless films, TV programmes and commercials. It’s one of the most famous pieces of music around, but most people wouldn’t be able to name it! If you’re interested in reading more about Verdi, here are some links:

http://www.giuseppeverdi.it/Inglese/page.asp?IDCategoria=162&IDSezione=580&ID=19746
http://www.ci.hickory.nc.us/library/Columns/2007/10032007.html
http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/Requiem-(Verdi)

And why not treat yourself to a CD of the complete work:

Merry Christmas & Happy Birthday Orlando Gibbons

My Music Theory wishes you a very merry Christmas and a Happy 525th Birthday to Orlando Gibbons, born (or at least baptised) on 25th December 1583.

So who is Orlando Gibbons? Apart from having a pretty splendid name, Orlando Gibbons was a Renaissance English composer who is still popular today – well at least he’s still popular in music exams and amongst early music enthusiasts! He was born in Oxford and got his Bachelor’s degree in Music from Kings College, Cambridge University, then worked as an organist and composer until he died at the ripe old age of 41. That wasn’t a bad age in those days, I believe, and even today apparently Kings
College commemorates his death with an obituary service in his name.

Long live Orlando!
Orlando Gibbons’ most famous piece of music is his madrigal “The Silver Swan”. Madrigals were invented in Italy and the first madrigals with the words translated into English arrived in England in 1588. They were an instant hit and sparked off a great flurry of enthusiastic composing across the nation – they were the ‘pop’ music of their day. If you had been born in the 16th century your mum would probably have been shouting “stop that racket” at you and your mates singing, one person per part, in your back room of a Sunday evening.

Madrigals came in 3 flavours – Proper, Ballets and Ayres. A madrigal proper employed word painting – musical illustrations matching the meaning of the words in the text, and were extremely contrapuntal – meaning that the voices weave around each other rather than all following the same melodic line, and they also used a lot of imitation to develop musical ideas.

Ballets were lighter in style and often danced to as well as sung. Ballets are famous for having a fa-la-la refrain, meaning that they had a chorus which basically consisted of the words “fa-la-la”. Simple but catchy! Ayres were songs, and could be sung with perhaps a lute accompaniment. The music was printed in books with each part facing in a different direction, so that the players and singers could sit around a square table and see their part clearly.

Here are the words to Orlando Gibbons “Silver Swan” madrigal:

The silver Swan, who living had no note,
When death approached, unlocked her silent throat.
Leaning her breast upon the reedy shore,
Thus sang her first and last, and sang no more:
"Farewell, all joys! O Death, come close mine eyes!
More geese than swans now live, more fools than wise.”

If you’re studying Grade Five Music Theory, you could try composing a melody to these words – try to use some word painting, imitation and think about the cadence points. Then compare it to the original:

If you want to listen to more, we recommend the following CD available from Amazon which includes the "Silver Swan". It's a two-disc compilation of Italian and English Madrigals and is a great introduction to this beautiful genre of music.

New Style Update

All the Grade One and Grade Five music theory lessons have now been cleaned up and are showing off the new decor. Next up will be the exercises for each grade, and I'm aware that a few of the pages are currently broken (the answers don't show up when you mouse-over the questions), so I'll be fixing them too. The long-awaited Grade Five Practice Exam will also be up very soon!

The My Music Theory Home Page has also been re-styled and I've put a few extra bits and bobs on there for your amusement:

• You can check out the countdown clock till the next UK Theory Exams! Currently only(!) 78 days to go till the next exam sitting on March 5th 2009.
• You can vote in the poll - are you a teacher, a student, a music theory stalker or something else?
• You can mess about on the mini-piano keyboard - one full octave at your disposal! (It's right at the bottom of the page - takes a second or two to load.)
• You can catch the latest Blog headlines directly from the homepage.
  

Hope you like new widgets!

New Style for My Music Theory

If you've looked at the Grade One lessons recently, you might have noticed that we've gone all posh and decorated the site yet again! It's not just cosmetic, we've tidied up a lot of the code behind the pages, so hopefully there will be no more problems with displaying the pages on any browser. Grade One is all done, and I'm now plodding through Grade Five - it's pretty messy back there in the dark world of html code, so it's a bit slow, but hopefully Grade Five will be up, all shiny and new soon too.

My Music Theory Blog is Born!

Mymusictheory.com is a free online resource for anyone interested in music theory. The website consists of free lessons which are designed for students who are taking the ABRSM music theory exams, but they're also used by a whole host of other people from hobby musicians to music students.

This blog has been set up to announce news and developments for the site, and also as a place for me to write more general articles about music and music theory.

While the website is great for studying music theory in a structured way, this blog will provide a platform for other, related topics, which don't necessarily fit into the ABRSM syllabus.

So, without further ado, on to the first news item!

Mymusictheory.com has been experiencing problems with the guestbook. To be honest, I can't figure out why it isn't working, as it lets me write comments for myself, but obviously that's not much fun... If you have any comments and can't get them up on the guestbook, please send them to info@mymusictheory.com - thanks!

Mymusictheory.com will soon be boasting a whole new Grade Two music theory course. I've had a lot of requests for Grade Six, (and it's nice to see the enthusiasm of so many students after tackling Grade Five!), so Grade Six will be next on the agenda.


OK, that's all for now!