Epitaph (pronounced ep-i-taf or ep-i-tahf)
(1) A
commemorative inscription on a tomb or mortuary monument about the person
buried at that site.
(2) A
brief poem or written passage composed in commemoration of a dead person.
(3) A
final judgment on a person or thing.
(4) To
commemorate in or with an epitaph.
(5) To write or speak after the manner of an epitaph.
1350–1400: From the Middle English epitaphe (inscription on a tomb or monument), from the Old French epitafe, from the twelfth century Old French epitaphe, from the Latin epitaphium (funeral oration, eulogy), from the Ancient Greek epitáphion (over or at a tomb; a funeral oration), (noun use of neuter of ἐπιτάφιος (epitáphios) ((words) spoken on the occasion of a funeral), the construct being epi- (From the Ancient Greek ἐπί (epí) (at, over; on top of; in addition to (in a special use in chemistry, it denotes an epimeric form))) + τάφος (táph(os)) (tomb) + -ion (the noun-adjectival suffix). Táphos (tomb, burial, funeral) was related to taphē (interment) & thaptō (to bury) of uncertain origin. It has long been thought derived (like the Armenian damban (tomb)) from the primitive Indo-European root dhembh- (to dig, bury) but recent scholarship has cast doubts and some etymologists suggest both the Armenian and Greek could be borrowings. There were equivalent words in the Old English and regional variations were many; the one which survived longest was byrgelsleoð.
The
companion words, which differ not only in nuance but in convention of use,
include eulogy (an oration about the dead, delivered usually at a funeral or
memorial service), obituary (something in written form published soon after
death which provides a potted biography and epigraph (a quote engraved on a
tombstone, variously plaintive, humorous or barbed). Not quite the same but very to the point is
the Latin hic jacet (literally “here
lies”). Epitaph is a noun or verb (used
with object), epitaphic, epitaphial, epitaphed & epitaphless are adjectives,
epitaphically is an adverb and epitaphist is a noun. The noun plural is epitaphs.
Jonathan Swift's marble memorial, St Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin.
One of
the most celebrated epitaphs in English was saeva
indignatio (literally “savage indignation”) which appeared on the tomb of
the delightfully wicked Anglo-Irish satirist & poet Jonathan Swift
(1667-1745), expressing a resigned contempt at human folly. Swift is probably best remembered for Gulliver's Travels (1726) but it was A Modest Proposal (1729) which defined
the genre of satire and work in this vein is often still labeled "Swiftian". Swift started his political life as a Whig
but ended it a Tory, becoming an Anglican cleric who was appointed Dean of St
Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin.
Swift
not only wrote his own epitaph but left instructions also for the stonemason
and the authorities of Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, the memorial to be rendered
in black marble, mounted seven feet from the ground, the large letters to be deeply
cut and strongly gilded. His
specifications were followed but the stridency of Swift's Latin displeased a
few who, finding it harsh or inelegant, didn't always reproduce it with
complete fidelity. The translation into
modern English is Here is laid the body
of Jonathan Swift.....where savage indignation can no longer tear his heart.
Depart, wayfarer, and imitate if you can a man who to his utmost strenuously
championed liberty. Fellow Irish
poet William Butler Yeats (1865–1939) rendered it as the punchier Swift has sailed into his rest; savage
indignation there cannot lacerate his breast.
Imitate him if you dare, world-besotted traveller; he served human
liberty.
Charles Mingus (1922–1979) was an
American double bassist, pianist, composer and bandleader and one of the
seminal figures in jazz. Although lauded
for the way his bands would interpolate passages of collective improvisation
into performance pieces, he was influential also in his structured compositions,
some of which were, by the standards of the genre, unusually long. None however matched his Epitaph, comprising over four-thousand measures (a grouping of
beats, which indicates the meter of a particular piece of music) and demanding more
than two hours to perform, ranking with epic-length pieces such as Wynton
Marsalis’s (b 1961) Blood On The Fields
(1997) and Carla Bley’s (b 1936) Escalator
Over The Hill (1968-1971); only Wadada Leo Smith’s (b 1941) sprawling Ten Freedom Summers (2012), unfolding over five hours, runs longer.
It’s
not clear how long Mingus worked on Epitaph
and its gestation may have absorbed as long as Ten Freedom Summers (thirty-four years in the making) because fragments of Epitaph were
performed as early as 1962 although whether it was then envisaged as what it
became is unknown. It was only after his
death, while Mingus’s work was being catalogued, that the whole of Epitaph was assembled and the score compiled. This enabled the piece to be
performed in 1989 by a thirty-piece orchestra, conducted by Gunther Schuller
(1925-2015) and produced by Mingus's widow, Sue Graham Mingus (b circa 1933). It has since had a number of performances,
several in 2007, and the complete score has been published.
Epitaph, full of melodies, is rewarding and not entirely
unfamiliar because Mingus over the years included several snatches in live
recordings and concerts preformed with smaller bands, playfully sampling the
music of a few others in sections although that’s not typical of Epitaph, a work all have noted for its originality. A two-hour suite for thirty-one musicians is
not necessarily unwieldy but Epitaph is
complicated and really demands a band both familiar with each-other and
well-rehearsed. It’s not the sort of
piece suited to an ensemble, however virtuosic, assembled for a one-off
performance and the definitive performance which one day will be released will
likely have been carefully edited and polished from any number of studio
sessions. Technically, it’s challenging for
a conductor, there are shifts between melodic strains which sometimes are
sudden and sometimes overlap, parts apparently unresolved skid to a stop,
tempos pick-up at various paces and there’s an underlying cross-talking between
extreme-register instruments; doubtlessly it's no less difficult for the
musicians, two pianists, two bassists, a drummer and two percussionists needing peacefully to co-exist although, this is Mingus and that means creative tension is lives between the notes. Even once détente was
established however, there's still the piece itself to conquer, not all of it
in the familiar language of jazz for there are vertiginous jumps in register, fast phrases
slurring effortlessly to the languid and the jar sometimes of the polytonality of
which American composers of the twentieth century were so fond. Critics and other aficionados of the art were
enchanted but it’s suspected there were those who dipped in and out of their
CD and listened just to the bits they liked.
