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. 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. 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. 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. that Mozart had seen Martini on the way to Rome, and that Leopold's letter (the only source of this story) contains several confusing and seemingly contradictory statements. Less than three months after hearing the piece 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. 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. 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 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 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. 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. ==Recordings==