Is "Dies Irae" a gregorian chant?

It can be and is, technically, but it’s a little complicated. It depends on which version or versions of the Dies Irae you are talking about. The Dies Irae is the liturgy of a Requiem Mass for the Dead from the medieval Catholic Church. But it inspired many composers, like Mozart and his Dies Irae, and many others wouldn’t technically be Gregorian Chants. Here’s the entry on Requiems from wikipedia where it explains:

”The Requiem Mass is notable for the large number of musical compositions that it has inspired, including the settings of Mozart, Verdi, Duruflé and Fauré. Originally, such compositions were meant to be performed in liturgical service, with monophonic chant. Eventually the dramatic character of the text began to appeal to composers to an extent that they made the requiem a genre of its own, and the compositions of composers such as Verdi are essentially concert pieces rather than liturgical works.”

Hopefully someone who knows more about music and liturgical history of the Catholic Church than I do will weigh with more, possible better, information. :-)

thank you so much! I’m looking at this version if it helps you or anyone else

Dies Irae

It’s off the 1994 CD, “Ego sum Ressurectio,” and is difficult to find. LOL. I just cut and pasted that. I’m not that smart. :-) If you click “show more” under the description of it on your youtube link, the information it there. I hope you can find it. It’s beautiful.

Thank you

Depends on if Gregorians are singing it or not?

I think Motzart wrote it? *Not positive though? *Which is funny because there wasn’t a bigger sinner ever made aside from maybe John Wilmot, and Lord Byron?

“Righteous Judge!
for sin’s pollution
grant thy gift of absolution,
ere the day of retribution.
Just judge of revenge,
give the gift of remission
before the day of reckoning.”

Nope… I was wrong, I peeked, it was Thomas of Celano who wrote it.

It is part of the mourning ceremony and it has been put into many forms of music over the centuries. Mostly it has been performed in religious ceremonies. But many composers have written treatments of it, and although I don’t know of any, I’ll bet contemporary composers including jazz composers have also done it.