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THE SEQUENCE DIES IRAEIN THE ARTISTIC OUTPUT OF BAIRD, PENDERECKI AND MEYER

I.H. Swidnicka

Abstract

The motif Dies Iraeis one of the most recognisable themes in music. Marked by its significant meaning, the musical quotation plays a symbolic role in a number of works of music. It became extremely popular with composers of the Romantic era (Berlioz, Liszt, Saint-SaГ«ns) and later times (Honegger, Crumb). Some composers kept returning to it, sometimes nearly obsessively, in many of their works (Tchaikovsky, Shostakovich, Rachmaninoff). The sequence enjoys a major position in their music, as if it carried the load or almost the entire content of the work. Tadeusz Baird, Krzysztof Penderecki and Krzysztof Meyer are among the contemporary Polish composers who have also tapped into the abundant tradition of Dies Irae being used as a musical quotation. However, each of them approached the sequence differently. In G?osy z oddali [Voices from Afar], i.e. BairdВ’s last composition written three months before his death, he included the theme as a direct quotation of the first seven sounds of the sequence; in his String Quartet No 7, written in memory of his father, Meyer alluded to it by availing merely of its first five sounds; and Penderecki used the phrase as a title for his oratorio Dies Irae, dedicated to prisoners of the Auschwitz concentration camp killed during World War II, making another symbolic reference to it in the lyrics (dies magnus irae). Interestingly enough, 47 years later Penderecki composed his second oratorio, Dies Illa, for the 100thanniversary of World War I and in memory of its victims. Over a thousand of performers representing the parties of the conflict participated in the premiere of the work. A comparative method is applied in order to compare the ways in which the sequence is used in the respective works, together with an intertextual method which additionally allows to demonstrate verbal and textual relations in each of the compositions.

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