Lamentation

What it means

A Lamentation is a musical setting of the biblical Lamentations of Jeremiah, sung in the Catholic liturgy during the Matins (Tenebrae) of Holy Week — Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Holy Saturday.

The Latin text follows a fixed form: each verse opens with a Hebrew letter, which composers often set with an elaborate melisma before the lament itself begins.

Musical use

Lamentations were set from the Middle Ages through the Baroque, first as plainchant, later polyphonically. Well-known settings include those by Palestrina, Tomás Luis de Victoria and Orlando di Lasso.

The Lamentation should be distinguished from the broader term lament or threnody, which is not tied to the liturgical text of Holy Week. In the twentieth century, composers such as Ernst Krenek returned to the subject.

Performance practice

When you sing a Lamentation, pay attention to its declamatory, often plain character: the text comes first, and the melody follows its structure and the caesuras marked by the Hebrew letters.