What is "threni"

Threni may refer to:

• the Latin name for the Book of Lamentations
• Threni (Stravinsky), a musical setting of the above

Threni: id est Lamentationes Jeremiae Prophetae, usually referred to simply as Threni, is a musical setting by Igor Stravinsky of verses from the Book of Lamentations in the Latin of the Vulgate, for solo singers, chorus and orchestra. It is important among Stravinsky's compositions as his first and longest completely dodecaphonic work, but is not often performed. It has been described as "austere" but also as a "culminating point" in his career as an artist, "important both spiritually and stylistically" and "the most ambitious and structurally the most complex" of all his religious compositions, and even "among Stravinsky's greatest works".

Stravinsky composed Threni in 1957–1958 for the Venice Biennale, and it was first performed there in September 1958. A performance in Paris two months later was a disaster, attributed to inadequate performers and insufficient rehearsals. It led to mutual recriminations between Stravinsky, Pierre Boulez and Robert Craft. The work was first published in 1958 and first recorded in 1959, in a recording conducted by the composer.

As Threni was intended for concert rather than liturgical use, Stravinsky chose the text freely from the early chapters of the Book of Lamentations. It has three movements: the large central movement is surrounded by two much shorter ones. Ernst Krenek composed a setting of the Lamentations in 1942, and Stravinsky acknowledged that it might have influenced him. He considered it less likely that works by Renaissance composers, including Tallis, Byrd and Palestrina, had influenced him, although he had studied such music.