Dies Irae. Gregorian Chant Sequence In The Requiem Mass.

Attributed to Hans Memling (1440-1494).

"Last Judgement Triptych" (central panel) in Muzeum Narodowe, Gdansk, Poland. http://www.wga.hu/preview/m/memling/1early3/02last2.jpg

Date: 16 June 2006 (Original Upload Date).

Source: Web Gallery of Art.

Author: Original uploader was Stroika at en.wikipedia

(Wikimedia Commons)

"Dies Irae" (Day of Wrath) is a Latin Hymn attributed to, either, Thomas of Celano, of the Franciscan Order (1200 – 1265), or to Latino Malabranca Orsini († 1294), Lector at the Dominican Studium at Santa Sabina, the forerunner of the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas' Angelicum in Rome. 

The Hymn dates from at least the 13th-Century, though it is possible that it is much older, with some sources ascribing its origin to Saint Gregory the Great († 604 A.D.), Saint Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153), or Saint Bonaventure (1221-1274).

It is a Mediaeval Latin poem, characterised by its accentual stress and its rhymed lines. The metre is trochaic. The poem describes the Day of Judgment, the Last Trumpet summoning Souls before the Throne of God, where the Saved will be Delivered and the Unsaved Cast into Eternal Flames.

The Hymn is best known from its use as a Sequence in the Roman Catholic Requiem Mass (Mass for the Dead or Funeral Mass). An English version is found in various Anglican Communion Service Books.

Dies Irae.

Gregorian Chant.

Available on YouTube at

http://youtu.be/Dlr90NLDp-0.