Music #190 - Mozart & Allegri's Miserere

Miserere
- full name "Miserere mei, Deus" (Latin: "Have mercy on me, O God") 
- by Italian composer Gregorio Allegri during the 1630s    
  

The Sixteen Choir

It was composed for use in the Sistine Chapel during matins only. At some point, writing it down or performing it elsewhere was punishable by excommunication.
     According to the popular story, the 14-year-old Mozart was visiting Rome, when he first heard the piece during the Wednesday service. 
     Later that day, he wrote it down entirely from memory, returning to the Chapel that Friday to make minor corrections. 
  

King's College Chapel Choir

Later, Mozart met a British historian, who obtained the piece from him and took it to London, where it was published in 1771. Once it was published, the ban was lifted.
     Mozart was summoned to Rome by the Pope; only instead of excommunicating the boy, the Pope showered praises on him for his feat of musical genius. 
     Since the lifting of the ban, Allegri's Miserere has become one of the most popular a cappella choral works now performed.

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Notes:-

Sistine Chapel
 paintings by Michelangelo

- It is a setting of Psalm 51 (50) composed for use in the Sistine Chapel during matins, as part of the exclusive Tenebrae service on Wednesday and Friday of Holy Week.  
   
- The Miserere is written for two choirs, one of five (S1-S2-A-T-B) and one of four voices (S-A-T-B), and is an example of Renaissance polyphony surviving to the present day. 
     One of the choirs sings a simple version of the original Miserere chant; the other, spatially separated, sings an ornamented "commentary" on this.