An early and celebrated recording of it is the one from March 1963 by the Choir of King’s College, Cambridge, conducted by David Willcocks, which was sung in English, and featured the then-treble Roy Goodman. The work was also transcribed by Felix Mendelssohn in 1831 and Franz Liszt, and various other 18th and 19th century sources, with or without ornamentation, survive. Few written sources (not even Charles Burney’s) showed the ornamentation, and it was this that created the legend of the work’s mystery. The original ornamentations that made the work famous were Renaissance techniques that preceded the composition itself, and it was these techniques that were closely guarded by the Vatican. Less than three months after hearing the song and transcribing it, Mozart had gained fame for his musical work and was summoned back to Rome by Pope Clement XIV, who showered praise on him for his feats of musical genius, and later awarded him the Chivalric Order of the Golden Spur on 4 July 1770.
Choristers sing Allegri’s haunting ‘Miserere’ in empty St Paul’s cathedral
From the same supposed secrecy stems a popular story, backed by a letter written by Leopold Mozart to his wife on 14 April 1770, that at fourteen years of age, while visiting Rome, his son Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart first heard the piece during the Wednesday service, and later that day, wrote it down entirely from memory. 1735 are documented, to the point that by the 1760s, it was considered one of the works « most usually » performed by the Academy of Ancient Music. This alleged secrecy is advanced by an oft repeated statement that there were only « three authorised copies outside the Vatican, held by Emperor Leopold I, the King of Portugal, and Padre Martini. » However, copies of the piece were available in Rome, and it was also frequently performed elsewhere, including such places as London, where performances dating as far back as c.
- In 2015, the Sistine Chapel Choir released their first CD, including the 1661 Sistine codex version of the Miserere recorded in the chapel itself.
- This alleged secrecy is advanced by an oft repeated statement that there were only « three authorised copies outside the Vatican, held by Emperor Leopold I, the King of Portugal, and Padre Martini. » However, copies of the piece were available in Rome, and it was also frequently performed elsewhere, including such places as London, where performances dating as far back as c.
- It is written for three choirs, two of five and four voices respectively, with a third choir singing plainsong responses, each singing alternately and joining to sing the ending in one of the most recognised and enduring examples of polyphony, in this case in a 9-part rendition.
- The work was also transcribed by Felix Mendelssohn in 1831 and Franz Liszt, and various other 18th and 19th century sources, with or without ornamentation, survive.
What are the origins of Allegri’s Miserere – and did Mozart really transcribe it?
At some point, several myths surrounding the piece came to the fore, stemming probably from the fact that the Renaissance tradition of ornamentation as practised in the Sistine Chapel was virtually unknown outside of the Vatican by the time the piece became well known. It was composed during the reign of Pope Urban VIII, probably during the 1630s, for the exclusive use of the Sistine Chapel during the Tenebrae services of Holy Week, and its mystique was increased by unwritten performance traditions and ornamentation. Karl Proske, former Canon of Ratisbon Cathedral, described the composer as a man whose music was imbued with his religious faith and personal sense of justice, saying Allegri was ‘a model of priestly peace and humility, a father to the poor, the consoler of captives and the forsaken, a self-sacrificing help and rescuer of suffering humanity’.
Miserere (Allegri)
Against thee, thee only, have I sinned, And done that which is evil in thy sight; That thou mayest be justified when thou speakest, And be clear when thou judgest.Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity; And in sin did my mother conceive me. The original vocal forces for the two choirs were SATTB and SATB, but at some point in the 18th-century one of the two tenors was transposed up an octave, giving the SSATB setting which is most frequently performed today. Verses alternate between a five-part setting sung by the first choir (verses 1, 5, 9, 13, 17) and a four-part setting sung by the second (verses 3, 7, 11, 15, 19), interspersed with plain-chant renderings of the other verses. Since this version was popularised after the publication in 1951 of Ivor Atkins’ English version, with the original Latin text replaced with the translation by Miles Coverdale from the Book of Common Prayer, and a subsequent recording based upon this by the Choir of King’s College, Cambridge, Allegri’s Miserere has remained one of the most popular a cappella choral works performed. The Roman priest Pietro Alfieri published an edition in 1840 including ornamentation, with the intent of preserving the performance practice of the Sistine choir in both Allegri’s and Tommaso Bai’s (1714) settings. The version most performed today, with the famous « top C » in the second-half of the 4-voice falsobordone, is based on that published by William Smyth Rockstro in the first edition chicken game download of the Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (1880) and later combined with the first verse of Burney’s 1771 edition by Robert Haas (1932).
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- Verses alternate between a five-part setting sung by the first choir (verses 1, 5, 9, 13, 17) and a four-part setting sung by the second (verses 3, 7, 11, 15, 19), interspersed with plain-chant renderings of the other verses.
- It was composed during the reign of Pope Urban VIII, probably during the 1630s, for the exclusive use of the Sistine Chapel during the Tenebrae services of Holy Week, and its mystique was increased by unwritten performance traditions and ornamentation.
- Against thee, thee only, have I sinned, And done that which is evil in thy sight; That thou mayest be justified when thou speakest, And be clear when thou judgest.Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity; And in sin did my mother conceive me.
- From the same supposed secrecy stems a popular story, backed by a letter written by Leopold Mozart to his wife on 14 April 1770, that at fourteen years of age, while visiting Rome, his son Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart first heard the piece during the Wednesday service, and later that day, wrote it down entirely from memory.
Composed around 1638, Allegri’s setting of the Miserere was amongst the falsobordone settings used by the choir of the Sistine Chapel during Holy Week liturgy, a practice dating back to at least 1514. It is written for three choirs, two of five and four voices respectively, with a third choir singing plainsong responses, each singing alternately and joining to sing the ending in one of the most recognised and enduring examples of polyphony, in this case in a 9-part rendition. Mozart, when he was a teenager, so the story goes, once heard Allegri’s Miserere being performed in the Sistine Chapel. In 2015, the Sistine Chapel Choir released their first CD, including the 1661 Sistine codex version of the Miserere recorded in the chapel itself. This recording was originally part of a gramophone LP recording entitled Evensong for Ash Wednesday, but the Miserere has subsequently been re-released on various compilation discs.
