Miserere (Allegri)

The Miserere by Gregorio Allegri is a famous a cappella setting of Psalm 51 (Ps 50 Vul in the count of the Vulgate ). Allegri wrote it probably in the 1630s, while he was under the pontificate of Urban VIII papal chapel choir in Rome. It was sung in the Sistine Chapel until 1870, during Holy Week in the Karmetten the first psalm of Lauds. The copy of the score and the performance on other days was finally banned in the penalty of excommunication, so that Allegri's Miserere was soon surrounded by a myth.

Fourteen- year-old Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart is said to have heard the piece in 1770 for a stay in Rome Wednesday worship and have written down correctly later from memory. Two days later he went to the Good Friday service in order to make minor corrections. Later he met on his travels to the English historian Charles Burney, who took over the piece and brought to London, where it was released in 1771. After the publication of the ban was lifted. However, the published version did not include the rich ornamentation for which the work is known today. In the 18th and 19th century, the work underwent several paraphrases and additions, including by Felix Mendelssohn in 1831 and Pietro Alfieri 1840.

The Miserere is a comparatively simple Fauxbourdon set for nine voices, spread over two alternating choirs. A five-part choir sings a simple version of the Miserere, the second, four-part, at a different location of the performance space, a ornamented variant. Due to a transmission error in a print of 1951 a portion of the work was a fourth listed too high, so that the highest soprano voice reaches here the three painted c (c3 ) - this high note is not found in the original Vatican manuscripts and also in no note issue prior to 1951 compiled by Sir Ivor Atkins version. The now commonly sung version of the piece deviates therefore from the original; by their wide distribution, it was still a work of art its own rank. The composer Franz Wittenbrink once said of this piece: "If there is a heaven, it must lie in these sounds. "

The piece was played in an edited version to the funeral of Ludwig van Beethoven.