Dirge

History#

In the late Medieval period, it was common for Western Christian laity–both men and women–to attend the celebration of the Divine Office (canonical hours) according to various editions of the breviary alongside members of monastic communities. Formal liturgical saying of the Dirige–then legally required to be in Latin –persisted through the first half of the 16th century, with occasional requirements that certain proportions of a parish church’s congregation be present for such events. as the members’ anthem of the Lyke Wake Club, a society whose members are those who have completed the walk within 24 hours. This dirge saw a resurgence in popularity in the 1960s following performances by English folk bands such The Young Tradition and Pentangle. The Dirige was retained within the Elizabethan primer over Protestant objections to prayers for the dead and there remained resistance to the public liturgical performance of the devotion. In 1560 and 1561, episcopal visitors of the Church of England observed with disapproval the continued practice of clerks singing psalms in “dirge-like” fashion. Since their evolution away from Christian usage, some dirges have intentionally been written to be set to music, while others have been set or reset at later dates. Among the latter cases is the “Dirge for Fidele”, a portion of William Shakespeare’s play Cymbeline that was later set to music by multiple composers.

Notable dirges#

• “A Dirge”, by Christina Rossetti
• “Ring Out Your Bells”, by Sir Philip Sidney

See also#

• Cumha
• Death wail
• Funeral march
• Keening
• Lament bass
• Requiem#Music

Bibliography#

*Marcello Sorce Keller, “Expressing, Communicating, Sharing and Representing Grief and Sorrow with Organized Sound (Musings in Eight Short Sentences)”, in Stephen Wild, Di Roy, Aaron Corn, and Ruth Lee Martin (eds.), Humanities Research: One Common Thread the Musical World of Lament, Australian National University, Vol. XIX (2013), no. 3, 3–14.