Composer Gregorio Allegri’s “Miserere” is a piece of choral music so powerful that a 17th-century pope decreed it could be played only during the week leading to Easter ”” and then only in the Sistine Chapel. Jesse Kornbluth of HeadButler.com talks about the “Miserere” with Jacki Lyden.
Listen to it all from NPR and make sure to click the link and listen to the piece from the Westminster Abbey Choir
Mozart did the world a service by transcribing it. I suppose I can see how a Bishop of Rome might want to restrict it to use in the Sistine Chapel (Wagner did the same for Parsifal in Bayreuth), but I cannot imagine how a Bishop of Rome would think he has the authority to proclaim that performing it somewhere else could lead to the penalty of excommunication.
I’ve never been in a church choir with a soprano section that could sing this, and I’ve never heard a live performance. Church choirs these days are so “inclusive” that anyone (even I) can be a member, including elderly sopranos who sing flat with a wobble in the voice. Under those circumstances, this piece would be a foretaste of the eternal lake of fire.
In local Roman Catholic churches, one would be more likely to hear “Here I Am, Lord” than the Allegri “Miserere”.
I’ve been listening to this alot this Lent. It is a masterpiece. I am partial to the version performed by Clare Collge
http://www.amazon.com/Choral-Classics-From-Cambridge/dp/B005JWX7G8#
https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/miserere/id679562863?i=679563817
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This gorgeous piece is indeed a superlative masterpiece. The true story of how the 14 year-old prodigy Mozart managed to memorize it and transcribe it is one of those astounding facts that proves that truth is sometimes stranger than fiction. If someone were to make up a story about such a thing, no one would believe it. And yet it happened.
This piece actually requires a large space similar to the Sistine Chapel or a medieval catehdral, because it takes a second, small group of singers on the other side of the church (usually in a balcony) to provide the echo effect. Not to mention a lyric soprano who can hit those ultra high notes.
Ralph,
I heard the elite choir of St. George’s Episcopal in Nashville, a very large parish with a renowned music program with paid singers, do this number, and it was absolutely breath-taking.
This stunning music illustrates the fact that some of the best commentaries on Holy Scripture aren’t written by learned biblical scholars, but take the form of musical compositions or artistic works by master artists.
Karen B.,
Thanks for the links.
David Handy+