A threnody is a wailing ode, song, hymn or poem of mourning composed or performed as a memorial to a dead person. The term originates from the Greek language word θρηνῳδία ( threnoidia), from θρῆνος ( threnos, "wailing") and ᾠδή ( oide, "ode"),[ The Oxford Companion to Music (2010).]
Similar terms include "dirge", "coronach", "lament" and "elegy". The Epitaphios Threnos is the lamentation chanted in the Eastern Orthodox Church on Holy Saturday. John Dryden commemorated the death of Charles II of England in the long poem Threnodia Augustalis, and Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote a "Threnody" in memory of his son.[ Grove Music Online (2010).]
Examples
In written works:
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Countee Cullen's "Threnody for a Brown Girl"
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Bruce Dawe's poem "Homecoming"
[Pierce, Peter (2002). "Australian and American literature of the Vietnam War" in Australia's Vietnam War, p. 132. Texas A&M University Press. .]
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Ralph Waldo Emerson's "Threnody"
[Emerson, Ralph Waldo, "Threnody". From Early Poems of Ralph Waldo Emerson, New York, Boston, Thomas Y. Crowell & Company, 1899.]
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Peter H. Gilmore's "Threnody for Humanity"
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A. E. Housman's "To an Athlete Dying Young"
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Jan Kochanowski's "Laments"
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Yusef Komunyakaa's "Sunset Threnody" in Dien Cai Dau (1988)
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Anna Stanisławska's Transaction, or an Account of the Life of an Orphan Girl told through Mournful Laments in the Year 1685
In classical music:
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Thomas J. Bergersen's "Threnody for Europe"
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Benjamin Britten's "Threnody for Albert Herring"
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Lou Harrison's Threnody for Carlos Chavez
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Toshio Hosokawa's Threnody: To the victims of the Tōhoku 3.11 Earthquake (2011)
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André Jolivet's "Chant de Linos" for flute and piano or flute, string trio and harp; described by the composer as "a form of threnody: a funeral lamentation interrupted by cries and dances" (1944, premiered 1 June 1945)
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Janis Crystal Lipzin's 2003–05 film Threnody
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Two "Thrénodies" from Franz Liszt's piano series Années de pèlerinage, set at the Villa d'Este
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Marian McPartland's "Threnody", written in memory of pianist Mary Lou Williams
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Krzysztof Penderecki's Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima
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Gordon Rumson's Threnody for John Ogdon
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Bright Sheng's Nanjing! Nanjing!
[Sheng, Bright (2002). Orchestral Works. Naxos.]
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William Grant Still's Threnody: In Memory of Jean Sibelius
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Takashi Yoshimatsu’s Threnody to Toki
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"Threnody for Souls in Torment" by Robert Fripp
In jazz:
In film and other music:
See also
Bibliography
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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.
External links
