page_title: Equale
section_title: Commemoration of the dead
hierarchical_section_title: Equale / Commemoration of the dead
caption_attribution_description: English: Tower music, funeral service, and burial in the Moravian community in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.
context_page_description: An equale or aequale is a musical idiom. It is a piece for equal voices or instruments. In the 18th century the equale became established as a generic term for short, chordal pieces for trombone choirs, usually quartets or trios. The instruments were not necessarily equal in pitch, but formed a closed consort.
context_section_description: Aequales were conventionally used in Austria to commemorate the dead. They were performed from towers on All Souls' Day (2 November), and on the previous evening. They were also performed at funerals.
  While aequales might be played by other instruments, the sound of trombones was thought to be especially solemn and noble. Trombones had also already acquired an association with death and the afterlife. Finally, the theological symbolism of the trombone, representing divine presence, the voice of the angels, and the instrument of judgment, was thereby underscored.
caption: Trombone choirs announce a death from the belfry and play at a burial service in the Moravian community in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, 1874.
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