Sunday Classics preview: Verdi blows the lid off the Krap Kristian hypocrisy

Day of wrath, day of mourning,
earth in smoldering ashes lying,
so spake David and the Sibyl.
How great the trembling shall be
when the Judge shall come,
by whose sentence all shall be bound!

Zubin Mehta conducts the opening of the Dies Irae of the Verdi Requiem.

by Ken

Do you suppose this Dies Irae, this Day of Wrath, ever occurs to the Montgomery Burnses of the Raping, Pillaging, and Plundering Right? That they are accountable for their actions by a consciousness higher than the moral cesspool that is their brains?

Of the seven sections of Verdi's Requiem, the second, the Dies Irae, typically running some 35 minutes, accounts for some 40-45 percent of the total running time, and for its stupendous dramatic qualities inevitably draws at least equivalent attention. But do we really pay attention? We hear endless debates about whether Verdi's setting of the Requiem Mass is acceptably "liturgical"? Or is it hopelessly "theatrical"? Or is it maybe okay that it's "theatrical"? But does anyone pay any attention to what's actually going on in it?

This week we're going to look at just three subsections of the Dies Irae -- not counting the opening, that is. I've stuck it up top just so you can have the basic eruptive sound of the "Day of Wrath" in your ears as we proceed.


TO PROCEED WITH THE DIES IRAE
OF THE VERDI REQUIEM, CLICK HERE

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