A burial song or (less commonly) one sung in commemoration of the dead; a song of mourning or an instrumental piece expressive of similar sentiments. The word is a contraction of ‘dirige’, the first word of the first antiphon in the first nocturn at Matins in the Roman Office for the Dead (‘Dirige, Domine Deus meus, in conspectu tuo viam meam’). When, as often happened, the invitatorium (‘Venite, exsultemus Domino’) was omitted, the office would begin directly with the antiphon, and so in late medieval English the word ‘dirge’ came to be used in reference to the service as a whole. However, as in the similar case of ‘placebo’ (the initial word at Vespers in the same Office for the Dead), it soon took on a more general meaning and could be used for any song in the vernacular sung at a burial. In this sense a dirge has much the same connotation as a Threnody or a lament, though each term carries its own shade of meaning. The dirge has perhaps the most doleful character of them all; it is more specifically associated with the time of burial and often has a march-like tread, reminiscent of a funeral procession.
As a poetic form the dirge is peculiarly English, and most settings of dirges are therefore by British composers. The best-known of medieval dirges is the anonymous 15th-century Lyke-wake Dirge from the north of England, which has been set a number of times, notably by Stravinsky in his Cantata (1952) and by Britten in his Serenade (1943). Both settings employ exact repetition to achieve that sense of fateful monotony that might be considered a hallmark of the true dirge, but the two composers employ very different methods to avoid any tedium that might result from this. Stravinsky divided the poem's eight stanzas into four pairs, which he used to form a prelude, postlude and two interludes for other English lyrics, contrasted in mood. Britten's setting is a passacaglia in which the normal roles are reversed, the solo tenor continually repeating the melody, while the orchestral accompaniment changes for each strophe. Its processional character (the tempo marking is ‘Alla marcia grave’), and its crescendo to a central climax followed by a gradual lessening of volume and intensity, recall Vaughan Williams’s impressive setting of Whitman’s Dirge for Two Veterans in his cantata Dona nobis pacem (1936).
Among Shakespearean dirges, that for Fidele in Cymbeline (‘Fear no more the heat o' the sun’) has attracted several composers. Vaughan Williams set it for two voices and piano in 1922, and Gerald Finzi's setting for baritone and piano (or string orchestra) was included in the cycle Let us Garlands Bring, dedicated to Vaughan Williams on his 70th birthday in 1942. Among purely instrumental dirges must be mentioned the dirge canons which precede and follow the setting of Thomas's Do not go gentle into that good night in Stravinsky's In memoriam Dylan Thomas (1954).
MALCOLM BOYD