Message:

<p>[QUOTE=&quot;midas1, post: 4345415, member: 21309&quot;]I own a few different interpretations of</p><p>Misere mei Deustransferred by Gregorio Allegri</p><p><br /></p><p>One of my favorites is by the Tallis Scholars in the Sistine Chapel, Vatican.&nbsp; The singers are in different locations in the chapel so it&#039;s a very spacious recording.&nbsp; Beautiful.</p><p><br /></p><p>It sounds terrific on my old school Vandersteen speakers</p><p><br /></p><p>&nbsp;Miserere has a very interesting history:</p><p><br /></p><p>&quot;Allegri wrote the Miserere to be sung in the Sistine Chapel during the Easter celebrations. During the service, which started at 3.00am, there would be 27 candles burning. The Pope would gradually extinguish the candles until there was only one left burning. The Miserere was performed as the pope prayed at the altar with the single candle.</p><p><br /></p><p>This piece of music became very popular, and the Vatican did not want anyone else to perform it. No one was allowed to take the music away from the chapel or make copies of it.&nbsp; The Vatican called for excommunication of anyone trying to make a copy.&nbsp; However, by 1770 there were three known copies of the music.&nbsp; One of these was given to Emperor Leopold I by the pope.&nbsp; Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart visited the Sistine Chapel during a tour of Europe with his father in 1770. He was just 14 years old, but heard the piece and wrote all the music out from memory later the same day. A second visit enabled him to check that he had it written correctly. It is believed that Mozart&#039;s copy of the music was sent to England where it was published by Dr Charles Burney.&nbsp;&nbsp; It would be assumed that Mozart would have written the improvisations in his copy. Burney&#039;s version lacks the improvisations, so it possible that he removed them, and destroyed Mozart&#039;s copy to avoid trouble with the church.&nbsp;&nbsp; There were no copyright laws in those days, so there was nothing that the Vatican could do about it.&quot;[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

Your name or email address:

Do you already have an account?

• No, create an account now.
• Yes, my password is:
• Forgot your password?

Stay logged in