The Music Plays On — Allegri’s Miserere

Not only does Allegri’s Miserere have one of the most unique stories in all music, it is one of the most beautiful and haunting pieces ever composed and is deserving of its four centuries of popularity.

The Italian composer Gregorio Allegri composed his Miserere in most likely the 1630’s during the reign of Pope Urban VIII. I say ‘his’ because the text of the Miserere mei Deus (its full title) has been set by many composers from long before Allegri to the present day. The Miserere of Arvo Pärt

and James MacMillan

are two powerful and important 20th century settings of this text. In fact, Allegri’s is the last of twelve settings that were composed solely to be sung in the Sistine Chapel. It became forbidden to even transcribe these misereres onto paper, making the annual Holy Week performances by the Sistine Chapel Choir incredibly mysterious and wholly unique.

Nearly a century and half later, the fourteen-year-old Mozart famously visited Rome in 1770 and heard the Good Wednesday performance of Allegri’s Miserere. Later that same day he transcribed it in its entirety from memory, and went back to the Friday performance to check his work to make a couple of adjustments. Upon returning to Salzburg, he gained immediate fame and popularity for his accomplishment, so much so that Pope Clement XIV summoned him back to Rome and awarded him the Order of the Golden Spur on July 4, 1770.

Mozart’s transcription was published in London in 1771 and there were subsequently many transcriptions of this amazing composition, by composers including Mendelssohn and Liszt. Why so many transcriptions, and why would they differ so widely? If you look at the original composition by Allegri,