Mourning and Memorialization Through Music

Mourning, a natural process of adaptation to loss, can be expressed in many ways. Characteristically, we are most familiar with the deeply personal components of this process that Freud (1917) first described in his classic paper on “Mourning and Melancholia.” I have earlier (1961) attempted to describe the various sequential phases of mourning in the normal adult and have further suggested that this adaptational process has evolved from the more primitive reactions to loss seen in higher mammals. We know that the mourning process is not limited to external loss through death, although it is most characteristically seen following such a separation. Anniversary reactions, as I have previously noted (cf. Pollock, 1970, 1972), are also manifestations of unresolved or abnormal mourning processes. Further expressions of mourning and memorialization may be found through creative acts—i.e., in works of art, literature, poetry, and music.

This essay will focus on musical expressions of the mourning process following object death and will specifically concern itself with compositions that range from the Requiem Mass, funeral music, memorial music, and laments to modern elegiac works. Particular musical compositions and what they may have meant to their composers will be used as illustrations of the thesis that mourning can occur through musical creations.

This present work is one of several papers that investigate certain