Mozart: Dies Irae (Score Video) |
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The Dies irae ("Day of Wrath") opens with a show of orchestral and choral might with tremolo strings, syncopated figures and repeated chords in the brass. A rising chromatic scurry of sixteenth-notes leads into a chromatically rising harmonic progression with the chorus singing "Quantus tremor est futurus" ("what trembling there will be" in reference to the Last Judgment). This material is repeated with harmonic development before the texture suddenly drops to a trembling unison figure with more tremolo strings evocatively painting the "Quantus tremor" text.
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