A threnody is a song, hymn or poem of mourning composed or performed as a memorial to a dead person. The term originates from the Greek word threnoidia, from threnos ( "wailing") + oide ("ode");[1] ultimately, from the Proto-Indo-European root wed- ("to speak") that is also the precursor of such words as "ode", "tragedy", "comedy", "parody", "melody" and "rhapsody".
Synonyms 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.[2]
Examples of threnody [link]
- Krzysztof Penderecki's Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima
- Peter H. Gilmore's "Threnody for Humanity"
- Two "Thrénodies" from Franz Liszt's piano series Années de Pèlerinage, set at the Villa d'Este
- Marian McPartland's "Threnody", written in memory of pianist Mary Lou Williams
- Bright Sheng's Nanjing! Nanjing![citation needed]
- Lou Harrison's Threnody for Carlos Chavez
- Benjamin Britten's "Threnody for Albert Herring"
- Bruce Dawe's poem "Homecoming"[3]
Three classic jazz threnodies are:[citation needed]
- "I Remember Clifford", written by Benny Golson to honor the memory of Clifford Brown;
- "Goodbye Pork Pie Hat", written by Charles Mingus in memory of Lester Young;
- Moondog's "Bird's Lament", dedicated to Charlie Parker.
See also [link]
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Look up threnody in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. |
References [link]
- ^ The Oxford Companion to Music (2010)
- ^ Grove Music Online (2010)
- ^ Pierce, Peter (2002). "Australian and American literature of the Vietnam War" in Australia's Vietnam War, p. 132. Texas A&M University Press. ISBN 1585441376
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Threnody (comics)
Threnody is a fictional character created by Marvel Comics for the X-Men series. She was originally featured as a sort of "hound" for Mister Sinister, but this depth was fully explored in the series X-Man which came much later.
Fictional character biography
Melody Jacobs was born in Manhattan and led a relatively normal life until her mutant powers manifested in adolescence. She found herself feeding off of the energies released by the dead and the dying, energies so dark and primal she found herself lost in them. Some of the residual slivers of the dead’s souls lingered in her mind as she absorbed this energy, leaving her psyche in a state of chaos. Melody became a runaway and lived on the streets alone for a week before she was found by Emil Blonsky, the gamma-mutated Abomination. The Abomination had established himself as the lord of a clan of homeless and runaways known as the Forgotten, who took refuge in the sewers under the city. Melody spent weeks lying in a fugue-like state in Blonsky’s “Last Lair”, cared for by the sewer dwellers he championed. One older couple looked after Melody most of the time and called her “Threnody” after the mournful cries she made in-between her brief periods of lucidity. Sadly, no one was prepared for the second stage of Threnody’s mutation. She violently released the “death-purge” her body had built up, killing her kindly caretakers in an instant.
Threnody (disambiguation)
Threnody is a song, hymn or poem of mourning composed or performed as a memorial to a dead person.
Threnody may also refer to:
