By far the best-known and regarded piece of music composed by Allegri is the
Miserere mei, Deus, a setting of Vulgate Psalm 50 (=
Psalm 51). It is written for two
choirs, the one of five and the other of four voices, and has obtained considerable celebrity. One of the choirs sings a simple
fauxbourdon based on the original
plainsong chant for the
tonus peregrinus; the other choir sings a similar
fauxbourdon with pre-existing elaborations and the use of cadenzas. The
Miserere has for many years been sung annually during
Holy Week in the Sistine Chapel in the
Vatican. Many have cited this work as an example of the
stile antico (old style) or
prima pratica (first practice). However, its emphasis on
polychoral techniques certainly put it out of the range of
prima pratica. A more accurate comparison would be to the works of
Giovanni Gabrieli. The
Miserere is one of the most often-recorded examples of late Renaissance music, although it was actually written during the chronological confines of the
Baroque era; in this regard it is representative of the music of the Roman School of composers, who were stylistically conservative. The work acquired a considerable reputation for mystery and inaccessibility between the time of its composition and the era of modern recording; the Vatican, wanting to preserve its aura of mystery, forbade copies, threatening any publication or attempted copy with excommunication. They were not prepared, however, for a special visit in 1770 from a 14-year-old named
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, who, on a trip to Rome with his father, heard it but twice and transcribed it faithfully from memory, thus creating the first known unauthorised copy. However, there is evidence that copies of the work that pre-date Mozart's visit to Rome in 1770 had already been circulating in Europe, and Mozart may have heard the piece performed in London in 1764 or 1765 as well. In 1771 Mozart's copy was procured and published in England by the traveller and music historian
Dr Charles Burney. However, Burney's edition does not show the ornamentation for which the work was famous. The music as it is performed today includes a strange error by a copyist in the 1880s. The curious "trucker's gear change" from G minor to C minor is because the second half of the verse is the same as the first half, but transposed up a fourth. The original never had a Top C. The entire music performed at Rome in Holy Week, Allegri's
Miserere included, has been issued at
Leipzig by
Breitkopf and Härtel. Interesting accounts of the impression produced by the performance at
Rome may be found in the first volume of
Felix Mendelssohn's letters and in Miss Taylor's
Letters from Italy. ==References==