Dancing with Death: The "Totentanz" and the "Dies Irae"

Franz Liszt (1811-1886)

October 22 was the two-hundredth birthday of composer and Pianist Franz Liszt.  November 2 is the Feast of All Souls.  What do the two have in common?  The answer:  the Dies Irae.

The Dies Irae, Latin for “Day of Wrath,” is a hymn from the thirteenth century.  The poem, describing the Day of Judgement, is written with an underlying pulse that resonates through the main melody line.  In the extraordinary form, it serves as the Sequence for Requiem Mass.  In the ordinary form it was retained as a hymn for use in the Liturgy of the Hours, namely in the Office of Readings for the Second Sunday of Advent.

In The Reform of the Liturgy: 1948-1975, Archbishop Annibale Bugnini, perhaps the leading architect behind the Novus Ordo, wrote,

“[The Consilium] got rid of texts that smacked of a negative spirituality inherited from the Middle Ages.  Thus they remove such familiar and even beloved texts as the Libera me, Domine, the Dies Irae, and other that overemphasized judgement, fear, and despair.  These they replaced with texts urging Christian hope and arguably giving more effective expression to faith in the resurrection.”

Of course much of what Bugnini says is objective fact.  The chants that were removed did emphasize judgement, perhaps even fear.  Whether is was an overemphasis is up for debate, as is the claim that the new texts, absent of much of the talk of judgement, give a “more effective expression to faith in the resurrection.”

The text of the Dies Irae begins with the Book of Zephaniah 1:15-16:

“Dies irae dies illa, dies tribulationis et angustiae, dies vastitatis et desolationis, dies tenebrarum et caliginis, dies nebulae et turbinis, dies tubae et clangoris super civitates munitas et super angulos excelsos” (Nova Vulgate).

“That day will be a day of wrath, a day of distress and anguish, a day of ruin and devastation, a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and thick darkness, a day of trumpet blast and battle cry against the fortified cities and against the lofty battlements” (NRSV).

However, the full hymn pulls from numerous other places in Scripture: Matthew’s Gospel, 1 Thessalonians, 2 Peter, Luke’s Gospel, and Revelation.

Yet as powerful and beautiful as the text is, the most memorable part is the pulsing melody line.  Once through, a single listen will lock the melody into the mind for an entire day.  Part of the reason is obvious: it repeats incessantly.  Yet it repeats in a very curious way, by appearing in different parts of the verses each time.  In the first and second verses, the pulsing melody occurs in the first of the three clauses.  In verses three and four, it occurs in the second position.  In five and six it doesn’t occur at all.  Verses seven and eight find the familiar melody at the beginning once again.  From here the pattern repeats.  (The last two verses to something different melodically.)  Somehow the manner in which the main melodic theme moves from the beginning of clauses to the middle of clauses gives the pulse a sense of the unpredictable, which in a strange way makes it even more addictive.  On a literary note, the internal rhythm of the Dies Irae always reminds me of the manner in which Edgar Allen Poe uses words such as “nothing more” or “nevermore” or “evermore” at the end of his seven-syllable phrases in The Raven.  Though admittedly he doesn’t vary the location of his three-syllable phonetic rhythm, its mere repetition does provide the same sort of “pulse” that paradoxically makes the reader feel like the poem may never end, but at the same time keeps him reading.

Of course, while the Sequence was originally set in Gregorian Chant, many of the great composers of Requiem Masses have used the hymn as a defining moment in their works of composition: Mozart, Berlioz, Verdi, Stravinsky, and others.  Their compositions find varying melodies complete with harmonies and orchestrations.  The results are beautiful to be sure, yet they always seem to me to be missing the haunting solemnity uniquely captured by the simple Gregorian pulse.

What I find more interesting is how the main melodic theme of the original Gregorian composition shows up as an influence in other musical works.  Berlioz uses in his Symphonique fantastique.  Haydn uses it in his Symphony Number 103.  It shows up in Mahler’s second Symphony.  Rachmaninoff, Saint-Saens, Shostakovich, Tchaikovsky: the list goes on.  And speaking of liszts, or rather a certain Liszt ...

The Dance of Death, Hans Holbein the Younger

Franz Liszt completed the Totentanz, or Dance of the Dead, in 1849, though it did go through a couple revisions in the 1850’s.  Some would claim that Liszt had a particular fascination with death.  After all, he has at least three other pieces dealing with the theme: Funerailles (Funeral), La lugubre gondola (The dismal gondola), and Pense des morts (Think of the dead).  The Totentanz, however, is based directly on the melodic theme of the Dies Irae.  We mentioned above Berlioz’s Symphonique fantastique.  It is likely that this piece was an inspiration for the Totentanz.  We know that Berlioz had an impact on the talented Liszt, for the pianist and composer was a benefactor of Berlioz, his elder by eight years.

The Totentanz is a work of art to be sure.  It does, however, differ considerably in tone from the original Gregorian hymn.  While the chant sequence has an almost haunting pulse that carries the listener along, the Totentanz is considerably more percussive.  In fact, it opens up with the pianist quite literally banging the keys with the the melody from the Dies Irae sounding through the deep-voiced instruments of the orchestra at about half the speed as the original chant.  Supplemented by the other musicians, the soloist strikes the lower register keys desperately hoping to produce the violent volume needed to convey the emotion of the composition.

Following the violent opening, the melody returns again and again, with variation upon variation.  It weaves in and out persistently, and in the end has the same effect as the original hymn: that simple musical phrase is stuck in the listener’s head the rest of the day.

Richard Pohl, an early biographer of Liszt, wrote,

“Every variation discloses some new character - the earnest man, the flight youth, the scornful doubter, the prayerful monk, the daring soldier, the tender maiden, the playful child.”

I have always loved Liszt.  When one hears his piano compositions for the first time, it it difficult to believe that they could be played with a mere ten fingers.  There is a very average film from the late 1990’s starring Ethan Hawke and Uma Thurman: Gattaca.  It is a dystopia that takes place in a future where humans are being genetically engineered to be virtually perfect.  Though a mediocre movie, I have always been struck by a particular scene.  Some of the characters are coming out of a classical music concert featuring a world renowned pianist.  As they discuss in amazement the performance, the famous musician passes by and the characters as well as the audience get a glimpse of his genetically engineered hands, each indeed containing six fingers.  At that point the following interchange occurs:

Irene (Thurman): “Your didn’t know?”

Vincent (Hawke): “Oh, I knew.”

Irene: “It’s amazing, isn’t it?”

Vincent: “Twelve fingers or one, it’s how you play.”

Irene: “That piece can only be played with twelve.”

I always imagined that the piece in Gattaca was a lost version of a Liszt concerto, knowing deep down that Liszt, and perhaps Rachmaninoff as well, would have composed music for twelve fingers if he thought anyone could play it.

With the upcoming Feast of All Souls, the Catholic liturgical blogosphere will be filled with calls to bring back the Dies Irae.  While I heartily join in that request, I wanted instead to attempt to restore a certain consciousness of the cultural impact the Gregorian hymn has produced.  The Totentanz is perhaps the best example of a musical composition to illustrate this influence, at least in the arena of classical music.  If you have heard it, you already know this.  If you haven’t, give it a listen.  Yet beware, fair listener; the Totentanz, like the great Dies Irae that precedes it, will likely not leave you in peace anytime soon.