The melody of the 'Lacrymosa' has its origins in a discarded duet for tenor and bass with male chorus from the opera Don carlos following the death of Posa. With its somber scoring and disposition of voices, its B flat minor tonality, it is one of the most moving operatic laments ever written, which is why, now that modern research has enabled its reconstruction, several recent revivals of the opera have restored it. By comparison the 'Lacrymosa' is simpler in outline and more complex in detail. Just as verdi had concluded Aida with a slow cabaletta of the utmost plainness and regularity so he rounds off this most wide ranging and tempestuous prayer of the requiem with a movement whose main theme forms a period of thirty-two bars with a phrase pattern A-A-B-A (The melody had evolved very differently in the duet). But with each successive phrase the tapestry becomes richer, embellished with counterpoint and an abundance of lamenting figures entrusted to voices as well as instruments. The last cadence is interrupted so as to lead into a twelve-bar coda in the course of which the theme is broken down over a descending bass, then rises to a climax taking the solo soprano over a high B flat. But this is not the end.
A new pleading melody in G flat is sung by the four soloists to the lines 'Pie Jesu, Domine, dona eis requiem'. It is the palest shaft of light soon to vanish as fragments of the opening melody treated in imitation take over the rest of the movement; but somehow the darkness has been softened. For the final bars Verdi makes telling use of the full orchestra hushed, including bass drum.
The 'Amen' yields a cadence unknown to ecclesiastical rules: a chord of G major, swelling and dying answered by orchestra alone with one of B flat.
Verdi concludes the 'Dies Irae' as impressively as he has begun it.

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