# Best Use of Dies Irae



## Dimitri (Jun 27, 2013)

What are your favorites? Here are a few of mine, in no particular order:

Symphonie Fantastique - Berlioz
Totentanz - Liszt
Danse Macabre - Saint Saens
Symphony No 3 - Saint Saens
Isle of the Dead - Rachmaninoff
Symphonic Dances - Rachmaninoff
Metropolis Symphony - Daughterty
Stars and Stripes Forever - Sousa 
Sweeney Todd - Sondheim
Hunchback of Notre Dame - Menken
Star Wars prequels - John Williams
Close Encounters of the Third Kind - John Williams
Home Alone - John Williams
Marie Ward - Elmer Bernstein
Nightmare Before Christmas - Danny Elfman


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

I've been thinking of doing a thread like this, since so many composers used the _Dies Irae _plainchant tune in their works. Rachmaninov was obsessed with it, two other works apart from those you mention that have it are his _Symphony #3 _and _Variations on a Theme of Paganini._ Its no wonder since his music is so infused with choral type harmonies and bell rhythms, even moreso than other Russian composers. His music just all the better for this pet obsession of his, I think.

I like all of the ones I'm familiar with there - Rach, Berlioz, Saint-Saens, Liszt. All of them invest the tune with their own particular creative vision.

But I'd also add a partial quotation or sort of variation on _Dies Irae _which is the bassoons in the opening of *Haydn's* _*Symphony #103, Drum-roll*_. I don't know if its just coincidence or if he actually had it on his mind when writing that symphony, but it sounds very similar.


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## Dimitri (Jun 27, 2013)

Ohhh the Haydn is a good choice, sounds very sinister! If memory serves, Rachmaninoff's 1st also contains the theme.


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## Andreas (Apr 27, 2012)

Wendy Carlos in The Shining.


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## Novelette (Dec 12, 2012)

Liszt's _Totentanz_!

What a radical work, and what inventive use of the relatively simple melody!


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## Couchie (Dec 9, 2010)

Andreas said:


> Wendy Carlos in The Shining.


This is essentially the Fantastique Dies Irae, no?

The Fantastique is my favorite.


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## Dimitri (Jun 27, 2013)

Same rhythm as Berlioz's, but the creepy, barebones synth orchestration makes it a whole different ballgame, IMO.


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## GGluek (Dec 11, 2011)

There are brief and highly evocative quotes by Mahler in the Second Symphony and Das Klagende Lied. but the Berlioz remains the archetype.


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## Op.123 (Mar 25, 2013)

Totentanz.................


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

Memento Mori by Peter Sculthorpe.






Maybe not my favorite, but I didn't think anyone else would mention it and it's worth hearing. Plus he even uses the entire chant and not just the beginning fragment.


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## aleazk (Sep 30, 2011)

What about the third movement from Ligeti's Requiem:


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## Eschbeg (Jul 25, 2012)

And now for something completely different: "Making Christmas" from _A Nightmare Before Christmas_.


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## Eschbeg (Jul 25, 2012)

Oh wait... it was already on Dimitri's list! Glad I'm not the only one who hears the song as a Dies Irae reference.

Here's another Hollywood one, this time from Steve Jablonsky's score for _Dragon Wars_:


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## Dimitri (Jun 27, 2013)

Eschbeg said:


> Oh wait... it was already on Dimitri's list! Glad I'm not the only one who hears the song as a Dies Irae reference.


Interestingly, it can also be heard in the chorus to "Jack's Lament" ("Oh somewhere deep")


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## spradlig (Jul 25, 2012)

"Country Lane" from Wendy Carlos's soundtrack album for the film _A Clockwork Orange_ (I'm not familiar enough with the movie to know how much made it into the movie).


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

First, Shostakovich's 8th String Quartet, and second, Liszt's Totentanz.


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## peeyaj (Nov 17, 2010)

The best use of Verdi's Dies Irae.


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## techniquest (Aug 3, 2012)

It's also the main theme in 'Judgment Day' by The Enid on their first album 'In the Region of the Summer Stars' but trying to find a non messed-up and re-mixed or re-produced version of it is almost impossible. This live performance is okay but not a patch on the 1976 original. Meanwhile I think Berlioz has it nailed for best use in a classical symphony, though Rachmaninov's 1st symphony comes a close second.


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## QuietGuy (Mar 1, 2014)

Feel free to laugh, but I like Stephen Sonheim's use of it in _Sweeney Todd_.


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## maestro267 (Jul 25, 2009)

Rachmaninov's is certainly the most dramatic, in terms of how it almost acts as a character in the "drama" that is his musical oeuvre. It keeps coming back, again and again, taunting the composer. But in the last movement of his final work, the Symphonic Dances, it is finally crushed and overcome.

My favourite use is in the finale (Red Cape Tango) of Michael Daugherty's magnificent Metropolis Symphony.


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## Orfeo (Nov 14, 2013)

*Myaskovsky:* Symphony no. VI (finale) & Piano Sonata no. II.


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## Whistler Fred (Feb 6, 2014)

It also makes an appearance in George Crumb's "Black Angels," as does Schubert's "Death and the Maiden."


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Verdi's Requiem. Dies Irae. Incredible!!!


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## SilverSurfer (Sep 13, 2014)

*Passim trio* written on 1.988 by Joan Guinjoan (Riudoms, Tarragona, Catalunya, 1931) is also based on Dies irae:


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## Loge (Oct 30, 2014)

Andreas said:


> Wendy Carlos in The Shining.


Yes that is the best, but I also like Peter Maxwell Davies use of it in Ken Russell's The Devils.


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## MoonlightSonata (Mar 29, 2014)

I like the Liszt Totentanz and the wonderful finale of Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Here's one full of Dies Irae -- Sculthorpe's Memento Mori. "It is a piece imbued with a religious aura, rooted in a particular landscape.barren, mysterious Easter Island, with its enormous, brooding, enigmatic statues. And it is full of tunes, most notably the ancient plainchant Dies irae, which has been used by many classical composers but seldom with the blend of reverence and coloristic effectiveness Sculthorpe has achieved. It was marvelously effective music, innovative in sound but listener friendly."


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## MoonlightSonata (Mar 29, 2014)

Dimitri said:


> Danse Macabre - Saint Saens


People often mention this, but where exactly is the quotation. I adore that piece, but maybe I'm just not listening hard enough.


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## DiesIraeCX (Jul 21, 2014)

The best use of Dies Irae? When that one TC member made a username with it. 

I kid, of course. I haven't heard all of the Requiems, so I'm gonna have to go with Mozart and Verdi. The Verdi one is incredibly powerful, but I still like Mozart's more and not surprisingly, it was used to great effect in _Amadeus_. 
(So was the opening of the 25th at the beginning of the film)


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

With a nod to Berlioz, I'll go for the _Symphonic Dances_ of Rachmaninov. The dies irae not only blazes forth overwhelmingly at the end, but occurs in subtler variants elsewhere, the most wonderful of which may be the gentle benediction that concludes the first movement, a legato melody on strings that's a gorgeous transformation of the brass melody that opens movement 4 of his first symphony. No composer got more mileage out of this tune.


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## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

It's the motif for Bernstein's _West Side Story_. Those four notes voiced first by the woodwinds of the opening Prologue -- Di-es Ir-ae. While the Jets click fingers.

Take a look:


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