Music of Funerals, Death, and Mourning

Thursday, October 31, 2024

In view of the upcoming religious festivals and holidays – such as Halloween, Reformation Day, All Saints’ and All Souls’ Day, as well as the Sunday of the Dead – it seems fitting to take a closer look at compositions related to the topic of funerals, death, and mourning.

The artistic medium of music allows us to come to terms with grief in a special way, whereby it also draws on religious and socially mediated rituals. Funeral music combines the experience of loss and farewell with the representation of personal beliefs and the intention to commemorate or pay tribute.

In April 2025 a virtual international conference will be dedicated to this topic with the title “The Theatre of Death: Noble Funerals with Music in Early Modern Europe” organized by the Centro Studi Opera Omnia Luigi Boccherini, the Conservatorio ‘Nino Rota’ of Monopoli, and the Université de Versailles-Saint-Quentin. The Call for Papers is open until 16 February 2025.

The RISM database offers a range of search options to those interested in these topics, which can also be combined. First of all, one can search for the liturgical feasts:

• 31 October: Halloween RISM Catalog | RISM Online / Reformation Day (Protestant) - RISM Catalog | RISM Online
• 1 November: All Saints’ Day (Catholic) - RISM Catalog | RISM Online
• 2 November: All Souls’ Day (Catholic) - RISM Catalog | RISM Online
• Sunday of the Dead - RISM Catalog | RISM Online

In addition, entering a keyword or the name of a genre offers both direct hits and further search combinations to those looking for funeral music:

• Funeral music - RISM Catalog | RISM Online
• Elegies (instr./voc.) - RISM Catalog | RISM Online
• Dirges - RISM Catalog | RISM Online
• Requiems - RISM Catalog | RISM Online
• Posledovanie ischodnoe monachov (Burial of monks) - RISM Catalog | RISM Online
• Laments - RISM Catalog | RISM Online
• Leichenpredigt (Funeral sermons) - RISM Catalog | RISM Online
• Leichbestattung (Burials) - RISM Catalog | RISM Online
• Klag- und Trost-Lied (Songs of lament and consolation) - RISM Catalog | RISM Online

Furthermore, it is of course possible to search for an individual whose death proved notable in one way or another. Gustav III, the murdered King of Sweden, is the person connected with the most funeral compositions in the RISM database (RISM Catalog | RISM Online).

In conclusion it is worth calling attention to a most remarkable piece of funeral music, dedicated to five people. Georg Neumark bade farewell to four children, all of whom died within three years and at an early age, as well as their father, in a single composition (RISM ID no. 990047073 - RISM Catalog | RISM Online).

Image: Joseph Martin Kraus, Begravningskantata for Gustavus III, D-LÜh Mus. A 1|a, f. 29 (RISM ID no. 452012121 - RISM Catalog | RISM Online). Available online.

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