Dies Irae

Sequence from the Mass for the Dead dealing with the Day of Judgement. The text is lengthy and apocalyptic, and has inspired dramatic settings as part of a Requiem by composers including Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Giuseppe Verdi, Hector Berlioz, and Benjamin Britten.

The Dies Irae was originally associated with a distinctive plainsong theme, which has since been frequently quoted by composers as a kind of universal leitmotif to imply death or Hell. Examples of its use include:

Granville Bantock, Witches' Dance in incidental music to Macbeth;

Hector Berlioz, Witches' Sabbath in Fantastic Symphony;

Luigi Dallapiccola, Canti di prigionia;

Peter Maxwell Davies, St Michael;

Franz Liszt, Totentanz for piano and orchestra;

Sergei Rachmaninov, Rhapsody on a Theme by Paganini for piano and orchestra and Symphonic Dances, Op. 45;

Ottorino Respighi, Impressioni brasiliane;

Camille Saint-Saëns, Danse macabre for orchestra;

Ronald Stevenson, Passacaglia on DSCH;

Pyotr Tchaikovsky, Theme and Variations in Suite No. 3 for orchestra and song ‘In Dark Hell’;

Ralph Vaughan Williams, Five Tudor Portraits for chorus and orchestra (lament for Philip Sparrow).

A recent theory claims the Dies Irae as the ‘hidden’ theme of Edward Elgar's ‘Enigma’ Variations.