Analyzing a few sequences, Part 2: Dies irae, dies illa

Another sequence I mentioned in an earlier entry was Dies irae, dies illa from the Requiem Mass and its text is probably the most famous among all medieval sequences (thanks to Mozart's Requiem) , and also quite late comparing to others which remained in the liturgy after the Council of Trent (mid. 16th-century). The text is attributed to Thomas Celano (biographer of St. Francis of Assisi) and it is probably from the mid. 13th-century (more or less the same time when Meister Alexander said to be becoming active).

 

English translation:

Dreaded day, that day of ire,

when the world shall melt in fire

told by Sybil and David's lyre.

Fright men's hearts shall rudely shift,

as the judge through gleaming rift

comes each soul to closely sift.

Then, the trupet's shrill refrain,

piercing tombs by hill and plain,

souls to judgement shall arraign.

Death and nature stand aghast,

as the bodies rising fast,

hie to hear the sentence passed.

Then, before him shall be placed,

that whereon the verdict's based,

book wherein each deed is traced.

When the Judge his seat shall gain,

all that's hidden shall be plain,

nothing shall unjudged remain.

The poem itself is a meditation and a paraphrase of the Revelations from the New Testament (see for example Rv 8,6 or 11,15) and deals with an apocalyptic subject matter. The structure is consistent: using paired versicles with equal number of syllables per line. Each versicle consist of 3 lines forming a tercet and the lines inside the tercets rhyme with each other.

Quantus tremor est futurus
quando judex est ventúrus,
cuncta stricte discussurus.

This form is typical among late sequence verse structure and composing rhymed tercets of eight syllable lines were very much the norm by the mid. of 12th-century, not only for sequences but for new Office formularities as well). Seeing such progression towards regularities in composing a century before Alexander shows that there were indeed attempts to set up rules in compositions in order to make newly composed pieces (even if they were meant for liturgical use or not) easier to remember.

The beginning of the melody is a parody on the responsory verse of Libera me, Domine, de morte aeterna, and the whole sequence is in Mode 2. Phrase A uses almost the whole (so to say) 'official' range of the modus, begins on its dominant (reciting note)  f and ends on the finalis d. Phrase B exceeds the ambitus of Phrase A but also ends on the finalis, while the melody of Phrase C leads back to the music material of Phrase A and also goes a fourth below the finalis.

Also in this case, the textual and musical material of Phrase C is not shortened, but its melodic progressions seem to lead back to the characteristics of Phrase A.

Used sources:

Taruskin, Richard: Music from the earliest notations to the Sixteenth century, Oxford University Press, USA (July 27, 2009), Chapter 3: Retheorizing Music, pp 88-89

Hoppin, Richard: Medieval music, (Norton, 1978), Chapter III, pp 64-66

Analyzing a few sequences, Part 1: Victimae paschali laudes

In an earlier entry about the medieval sequence I have already discussed the importance of this genre in the process of reconstructing the missing melodic lines and also to understand the structure of the poem which will lead me to understand the construction of the music as well.

This first example is the famous Easter sequence Victimae paschali laudes, written by Wipo of Burgundy (mid. 11th-century) and this is one of the four sequences that the Council of Trent (1545-63) kept in the liturgy.

 

English translation of the text:

To the Pachal Victim, hymns of praise, come, ye Christians, joyous raise:

Lamb unstained, unmeasured price hath paid, ransom for the sheep that strayed.

To a father kind, rebellious men sinless Son hath led again.

Life and death in combat fierce engage, marvel dazzling every age.

Price of life by hellish monster slain living now shall ever reign.

Tell us, Mary, thou our herald be, what in passing thou didst see?

Empty tomb, where Christ, now living, lay.

Angels saw I in bright array: shroud and vesture loosely cast aside

Prove he's risen glorified.

Yea! my Hope hath snapped the fatal chain, smiting Death hath risen again:

quick before you, sped to Galilee.

(More trust is to be put in honest Mary [Magdalen] alone than in the lying crowd of Jews.)

Know we now that Christ hath truly risen.

Glorious King, help us while we sing.

Its structure was originally A BB CC DD, but the version that remained in the liturgical use lacks a repetition of phrase D, which has been officially removed by the Council of Trent because its nastiness and anti-semite content (along with almost all the other sequences from the liturgy). The original text follows the favored paired versicle structure (which was a characteristic of late French sequences), and the end of the lines are rhyming therefore theorists of that time called the rhymed and metrical sequences versus in order to distinguish them from the earlier prosa. 

The number of syllables in the phrases are well balanced and starting from Phrase B each last line of the phrases consist of 10 syllables and also the rhyme scheme within the identical phrases are following the same pattern (see table above).

As we take a look at the musical setting of the text, we can see that it is on Mode 1. The melody of Phrase A begins and ends on d, while Phrase B explores and uses the whole ambitus of Mode 1 including the characteristic use of the note below its finalis. Phrase C goes in the opposite direction than Phrase B and goes below the finalis with a fourth, but ends on d Phrase D has the same ambitus and direction as Phrase B.

The ambitus of the sequence is an octave plus a fourth (lowest: A, highest D'), and it is still in Mode 1, because although according to the theory the ambitus of each modus is an octave, later melodies move within the the range of an octave plus a third or fourth.

Although the form is not the same as Sion trure's, the ambitus is the same and the melodic material gives a little bit of information about the musical relation between the phrases. Of course, every modus has their own characteristic musical progressions and melodies in Protus tonality (mode 1 and 2) come up very often as well as in chant as in vernacular repertory. Also in sequences the textual and musical material in Phrase C is not shortened (like in the minnesinger piece by Wizlav or in Sion trure itself) comparing to the rest of the phrases.

Used sources:

Taruskin, Richard: Music from the earliest notations to the Sixteenth century, Oxford University Press, USA (July 27, 2009), Chapter 3: Retheorizing Music, pp 86-88

Hoppin, Richard: Medieval music, (Norton, 1978), Chapter VI, pp 164-166

Performing the 1st strophe

This performance is from my first master recital (5 July 2013). Since I haven't had a decent translation of the 2nd strophe, I decided to perform only the 1st strophe without any reconstruction, and experiment whether it worths to reconstruct the melody or not.

Notice:
Anyone who expects some early music interpretation in the fashion of '70s, '80s or '90s should really not listen to it. This is my interpretation, trying to go with the text and not making unnecessarly nice sound.

Analysis of Wizlav's 'Der Unghelarte hat ghe machet'

Just as I mentioned in the Introduction of my research report, I found a piece by Wizlav von Rügen III which shows structural similarities with Sion trure and this piece can be found in Jenaer Liederhandschrift (75v-76r).

Manuscript pictures

Transcription of the melody, and original text with nachdichtung

At analysing the piece we can conclude the following: it is in Mode 1, and its ambitus is relatively small (mostly moves within the fifth between d and a). The setting of the text is syllabic except for the little melismas in C1 and C2. The structural units does not show similar lenght, and their ambitus also change:  

• A is the longest and uses the whole ambitus of the fifth
• B is shorter than A, but keeps the ambitus of A
• C1 is even shorter than B, and its ambitus narrows down to major third (f-a), but shows a rather melismatic character
• C2 has an equal length with C1, has the same rather melismatic character and its ambitus grows up to a fourth (moves between e and a). The only difference between C1 and C2 is the little ornament on the last syllable of ture, which leads back to the melody of A
• ends with another A section
  

The structural scheme is the following: A A B B C1 C2 A. Although it does not share much characteristic similarities with the medieval sequence, except for the usage of paired versicles the piece gives me ideas regarding the reconstruction of the missing melodic lines of Sion trure. Just like in this piece by Wizlav, in Alexander's Zionlied the structural units marked with C shows also a shortened textual, therefore melodic material and has the role to lead back to the original tritus tonality which was already indicated in A.