Miserere mei, Deus - Allegri - Tenebrae conducted by Nigel Short

 

 

Miserere mei, Deus - Allegri - Tenebrae conducted by Nigel Short

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3v9unphfi0

 

 

Allegri's haunting Miserere is famous for both its ethereal beauty and for the mystery surrounding its composition. It is written for 2 choirs, who alternate phrases and then unite for a final resolution.


Allegri's Miserere was filmed at St. Bartholomew the Great, London
Tenebrae, directed by Nigel Short
Produced and edited by John Coates




Gregorio ALLEGRI - Miserere Mei, Deus
(+ Lyrics / OXFORD, Choir of New College)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3s45XOnYOIw

 

Gregorio ALLEGRI - "Miserere mei, Deus" (= "Mon Dieu, prends pitié de moi")
The Choir of New College, Oxford (Edward HIGGINBOTTOM)

 

Psalm 51 (50):

 

Miserere (full title: Miserere mei, Deus, Latin for "Have mercy on me, O God") is a setting of Psalm 51 (Psalm 50 in Septuagint numbering) by Italian composer Gregorio Allegri. It was composed during the reign of Pope Urban VIII, probably during the 1630s, for the exclusive use of the Sistine Chapel during the Tenebrae services of Holy Week, and its mystique was increased by unwritten performance traditions and ornamentation. It is written for two choirs, of five and four voices respectively, singing alternately and joining to sing the ending in one of the most recognised and enduring examples of polyphony, in this case in a 9-part rendition.

 

The Sistine Chapel, Vatican City

 

History

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 practiced in the Sistine Chapel was virtually unknown outside of the Vatican by the time the piece become 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.

 

From the same supposed secrecy stems a popular story, backed by a letter written by Leopold Mozart to his wife on April 14 1770, that at fourteen years of age, while visiting Rome, his son Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart first heard the piece during the Wednesday service, and later that day, wrote it down entirely from memory. Doubt has however been cast on much of this story, as the Miserere was known in London, which Mozart had visited in 1764-65,  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 song 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 July 4, 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 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.

 

The version most performed nowadays, with the famous "top C" in the second-half of the 4-voice falsobordone, is based on that published by William Smyth Rockstro in the first edition of the Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (1880) and later combined with the first verse of Charles Burney's 1771 edition by Robert Haas (1932).  Since this version was popularised after the publication in 1951 of Ivor Atkins' English version 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.

 

The organ and roof of King's College Chapel, Cambridge

 

 

Original

The original translation of the psalm used for the piece was in Latin:

Miserere mei, Deus: secundum magnam misericordiam tuam.
Et secundum multitudinem miserationum tuarum, dele iniquitatem meam.
Amplius lava me ab iniquitate mea: et a peccato meo munda me.
Quoniam iniquitatem meam ego cognosco: et peccatum meum contra me est semper.
Tibi soli peccavi, et malum coram te feci: ut justificeris in sermonibus tuis, et vincas cum judicaris.
Ecce enim in iniquitatibus conceptus sum: et in peccatis concepit me mater mea.
Ecce enim veritatem dilexisti: incerta et occulta sapientiae tuae manifestasti mihi.
Asperges me hyssopo, et mundabor: lavabis me, et super nivem dealbabor.
Auditui meo dabis gaudium et laetitiam: et exsultabunt ossa humiliata.
Averte faciem tuam a peccatis meis: et omnes iniquitates meas dele.

Cor mundum crea in me, Deus: et spiritum rectum innova in visceribus meis.
Ne proiicias me a facie tua: et spiritum sanctum tuum ne auferas a me.
Redde mihi laetitiam salutaris tui: et spiritu principali confirm‎a me.
Docebo iniquos vias tuas: et impii ad te convertentur.
Libera me de sanguinibus, Deus, Deus salutis meae: et exsultabit lingua mea justitiam tuam.
Domine, labia mea aperies: et os meum annuntiabit laudem tuam.
Quoniam si voluisses sacrificium, dedissem utique: holocaustis non delectaberis.
Sacrificium Deo spiritus contribulatus: cor contritum, et humiliatum, Deus, non despicies.
Benigne fac, Domine, in bona voluntate tua Sion: ut aedificentur muri Ierusalem.
Tunc acceptabis sacrificium justitiae, oblationes, et holocausta: tunc imponent super altare tuum vitulos.

 

 

 

너무 아름다워서 봉인된

성 금요일 시편, 알레그리 미제레레(Allegri-Miserere) 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNFKuqfx99M

 

 

 

이 음악이 봉인된 가장 주된 이유로는 이 곡이 너무 유명해진 나머지 전례를 드리러 성당에 오는 것이 아니라 저 노래만을 들으러 사람들이 성당에 오는 문제가 발생했기 때문입니다.. 그리고 이 시대에 이르러 경쟁적으로 비슷한 작품들이 제작되고 모방되던 폐단이 심했습니다. 또한 C까지 올라가는 고음을 내는 곡으로 부르기가 힘든데 대중들이 계속 요구를 하니 성가대가 엄청나게 혹사당합니다. (어떤 분들이 거세된 남성들인 카스트라토를 가톨릭이 썼다고 주장하는데, 오히려 실제 가톨릭교회 안에서 거세는 신이 주신 몸을 훼손하는 중죄로 여겼습니다. 교회 역시 중세 대중들처럼 어린 남성 소년의 목소리가 가장 거룩한 것으로 여긴 것은 사실이나, 카스트라토는 교회 밖 귀족들에 의해 더욱 많이 향유된 문화입니다..) 곧, 교황은 전례 중심의 신앙생활 유지, 비슷한 곡 모방 금지, 성가대 보호차원, 희귀하게 만듦으로써 노래 자체에 대한 가치 상승 등 여러 이유를 고려하여 1년에 한 번 들을 수 있게끔 한거죠. 이는 오늘날의 저작권 행사의 시초라고 보시면 됩니다. 저작권 침해와 산업 스파이가 오늘날 엄청난 중죄이듯이 당시 곡 유출은 사실 큰 문제소지가 있는 내용입니다. 사실 이 곡 뿐 아니라 당신 각 가문마다 소유하고 불리던 노래들이 있을정도였으니까요. 이를 오늘날의 관점에서 왜 대중에게 안나누고 치사하게 식으로 생각해선 안되는 문제라는 것이지요,. 아무튼 훗날 클레멘스 14세 교황이 이 소식을 듣고 어린 모차르트를 불러 실제 채보를 시켜보는데 아이가 너무도 채보를 잘해서 오히려 이 재능을 선하게 쓰라며 '황금박차 기사단 훈장'을 수여합니다. 그리고 이 곡에 대한 봉인을 해제합니다. 너무 모차르트의 천재성을 미화하려는 이야기이다, 과장되었다 평가하시는 분들도 있는 것 같은데 실제 모차르트가 교황훈장 수여받은 사건이 역사적으로 뚜렷해서 거의 정설처럼 여겨지는 이야기입니다. 아래는 모차르트 이야기가 담긴 음악 매거진과 함께 황금박차 훈장을 달고 있는 어린 시절 모차르트의 초상화를 볼 수 있는 사이트입니다.

 

 https://www.classical-music.com/features/articles/why-did-the-pope-award-mozart-a-papal-knighthood-and-the-order-of-the-golden-spur/