Eric James replies to Mark Ehlert:

>>Neal Zaslaw suggests that this four-note motto is based on or an actual
>>transcription of the beginning of a Gregorian chant, but I've never seen
>>it indicated exactly which chant is being referred to.
>
>I believe the chant is "Lamentationes Jeremiae" (did I get that right?).
>Mozart uses the same chant in his "Mauererische Trauermusik" played by the
>oboes.  I don't know if there is any significance to Mozart's use of a
>funeral chant in his last symphony.

I believe it's not a chant in the Jupiter (we are talking about the last
movement, right?), but something known as the "Dresden Amen." Indeed, it
shows up in 18th-century counterpoint textbooks as a bass over which the
student is to elaborate.  The chant in the Masonic Funeral Music is
something else, but I forget what.

Mendelssohn uses the Dresden Amen in the Reformation Symphony, and Bloch
uses it as the primary motive in his Sacred Service.

Steve Schwartz