Confutatis: lyrics and translation
- Confutatis maledictis,When the accursed are confounded,Tenors and basses. Under them, jagged figures in the strings: flames.
- flammis acribus addictis,consigned to the bitter flames,
- voca me cum benedictis.call me with the blessed.Sopranos and altos, high and quiet. Listen to the strings: the fire under them does not go out.
- Oro supplex et acclinis,I pray, kneeling and bowed down,A sudden slowing. The whole choir quiet and low, the harmony sways, the key slides sideways. The boldest harmonic moment in the work.
- cor contritum quasi cinis,my heart crushed like ash,
- gere curam mei finis.take care of my end.
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Manuscript: the first page of the Confutatis
Leaf 83 of the working score. Both worlds of the movement are visible on one page: the flames of the first violin at the top and the harsh entry of the tenors and basses at the bottom.
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About
Two worlds in turn. Male voices low and harsh: the damned. Female voices high and quiet: the blessed. And the fire in the strings never dies down for a moment - it burns under the female voices too.
Tenors and basses burst in with a sharp rhythm, while the strings beneath them play short broken sounds like tongues of flame. The sopranos and altos answer at once, quiet and drawn out: "voca me" - "call me". This alternation happens twice. Then at "Oro supplex" everything slows down: the choir sings quietly while the music slides step by step downwards, into harmonies the ear is not used to.
Worth knowing
In the Dies irae it was the whole world that turned to ash: "solvet saeclum in favilla". Here the same word comes back, but about one person: "cor contritum quasi cinis" - "a heart ground down like ashes". One image describes first the end of the world and then what a person feels inside: the Judgement is shown twice, from far away and from close up.
At "Oro supplex" the music sinks lower and lower over a few bars and passes through harmonies that in Mozart's day were considered far apart: the ear cannot keep up and loses its footing for a moment. The rules of the time tended to forbid such moves, which is why this passage is called one of his boldest.
The choir splits in two: tenors and basses sing loudly, while the sopranos and altos are marked sotto voce, "in an undertone".
The damned and the blessed are not kept in separate movements but stand a few bars apart. Judgement and mercy are nowhere held apart in this work - they stand shoulder to shoulder.
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Quiet here so far. Yours would be the first.