Music and Death: A Brief Historical Survey

Dr. Kayleen JustusKennesaw State University

Georgia Academic DecathlonAugust 30th, 2019

David Bowie, Blackstar (2016)

New Orleans - Second Line, “Jazz Funeral”

https://youtu.be/ztlVXln-ZlM?t=15

Early Music• 450-1450 CE = Middle Ages• 1450-1600 = Renaissance• Rise of the Roman Catholic Church

• Mass, plainchant

“DIES IRAE” – EXCERPT (13TH CENTURY ) “day of wrath,” judgement day (Latin)

Baroque Music• 1600 – 1750• Monarchies and Empires• Scientific discoveries• Fascination with drama in the arts (and music)

• OPERA – 1600, The Florentine CamerataSpectacle, recitative and aria, CONTINUO

L’ORFEO, “TU SE’ MORTA” [ORFEO’S LAMENT] (1607) – CLAUDIO MONTEVERDI

DIDO AND AENEAS, “THY HAND, BELINDA/WHEN I AM LAID IN EARTH” [DIDO’S LAMENT](1689) – HENRY PURCELL

The Classic Era

• 1750 – 1820(ish)• Age of Enlightenment• Individualism, Liberty; Revolutionary period• Sing-able themes, symmetry in compositional elements• The Greats

REQUIEM, K. 626 “SEQUENCE: LACRIMOSA DIES ILLA” (1791) – WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART

Franz Josef Haydn

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Ludwig van Beethoven

Romantic Music• 1820 (ish)-1900• Fascination with supernatural, occult in art and music• Continuation/expansion of musical elements of Classic era

• Symphony• Lieder

“ERLKÖNIG,” OP. 1, D. 328 (1815) – FRANZ SCHUBERT

SYMPHONIE FANTASTIQUE, MVT. V “DREAM OF A WITCHES’ SABBATH” (1830) – HECTOR BERLIOZ

20th Century Ideas• 1900 – 2000/present• Modernism and Postmodernism;

experimentalism; psychology of the unconscious• Primitivism• Diversity of styleTHE RITE OF SPRING, “SACRIFICIAL DANCE(THE CHOSEN ONE)” (1913) – IGOR STRAVINSKY

Rite of Spring, Stravinsky (Joffrey Ballet, 1987)