Complete Encyclopaedia of Music/A/Allegri, Gregorio

Allegri, Gregorio, born at Rome, of the family of Correggio, was received in 1629 at the pope's chapel as a singer and composer. He was a pupil of Nanini. His celebrated "Miserere" is still sung in the papal chapel during passion Week, and is forbidden to be copied on pain of excommunication. It is well known that Mozart, having heared it performed twice, retained the score so strongly in his memory, that he wrote it down in almost perfect conformity to the original manuscript. The "Miserere" of Allegri was printed in London in 1771, under the superintendence of Dr. Burney; and in 1810, M. Choron inserted it in his collection of classical music. Allegri died in 1652, and was buried in the chapel of San Filippo Neri, in the Chiesa Nueva at Rome. This is now the common place of interment for the singers of the pontifical chapel. The following is the striking epitaph inscribed on the walk of the chapel : -

Cantores pontificii

Ne quos vivos

Concors melodia junxit,

Mortuos corporis discors resolutio dissolveret,

Hic una condi voluere.

The pontifical singers,

Anxious that those

Whom harmony united in life

Should not be separated in death,

Wished this as their burial-place.

Though his abilities as a singer were not very conspicuous, yet he was reckoned a complete master of harmony, and was in such estimation with the performers of his time, that he was appointed by the pope, A. D. 1629, to a situation in the choir of his chapel. His principal compositions are of a sacred and solemn description ; and many parts of the church service in Italy, remarkable for the divine simplicity and purity of the harmony, are at this day the evidences of his successful application to the musical art. To his skill as a composer he added a gentleness of disposition, and a warmth of benevolence, which showed that he was possessed of merit still higher and more enviable. The poor flocked around his abode, and were relieved by his charity; and guided by his exhortations. It was his daily business to visit the prisons of Rome, and to attend to the wants of the unhappy persons who were shut up in those dreary mansions. At length, after a life spent in useful employment and active benevolence, he died, in 1652, and was buried in the Chiesa Nueva, before the chapel of San Filippo Neri, near the altar of annunciation. Of all his works, the "Miserere" is the most distinguished. It was, for upwards of a hundred and fifty years, annually performed in passion week, at the pope's chapel, on Wednesday and Good Friday; it is in appearance so simple as to make those who have only seen it on paper wonder whence its beauty and effect could arise ; but it owes its reputation more to the manner in which it is performed than to the composition ; the same music is many times repeated to different words, and the singers have, by tradition, certain customs, expressions, and graces of convention, which produce great effects ; such as swelling and diminishing the sounds altogether, accelerating or retarding the measure at some particular words, and singing some entire verses quicker than others. So says Signor Sautarelli, who had often heard the "Miserere." Andrea Adami, in a work of his, mentions that "after several vain attempts, by preceding composers, for more than a hundred years, to set the same words to the satisfaction of the heads of the church, Gregorio Allegri succeeded so well as to merit eternal praise; for with few notes, well modulated, and well understood, he composed such as "Miserere as will be continued to be sung on the same days, every year, for ages yet to come ; and one that is conceived in such just proportions as will astonish future times, and ravish, as at present, the soul of every hearer." However, some of the great effects produced by this piece may, perhaps, be justly attributed to the time, place, and solemnity of the ceremonials used during the performance : the pope and conclave are all prostrated on the ground ; the candles of the chapel and the torches of the balustrade are extinguished, one by one ; and the last verse of this psalm is terminated by two choirs; the maestro di capella beating time slower and slower, and the singers diminishing, or rather extinguishing, the harmony, by little and little, to a perfect point. This composition used to be held so sacred, that, it was imagined, excommunication would be the consequence of an attempt to transcribe it. Padre Martini says, that there were never more than three copies made by authority, one of which was for the Emperor Leopold, one for the late King of Portugal, and the other for himself : this latter he permitted Dr. Burney to transcribe at Bologna, and Signor Sautarelli favored him with another copy from the archives of the pope's chapel. Upon collating these two copies, Dr. Burney found them to agree pretty exactly, except in the first verse ; he says, "I have seen several spurious copies of this composition in the possession of different persons, in which the melody of the soprano, or upper part, was tolerably correct, but the other parts differed very much, and this inclined me to suppose the upper part to have been written from memory, which, being so often repeated to different words in the performance, would not be very difficult to do, and the other parts to have been made to it by sonic modern contrapuntist afterwards. The Emperor Leopold I., not only a lover and patron of music, but a good composer himself, ordered his ambassador to Rome to entreat the pope to permit him to have a copy of the celebrated "Miserere" of Allegri for the use of the imperial chapel at Vienna, which being granted, a copy was made by the senior maestro of the pope's chapel, and sent to the emperor, who had then in his service some of the best singers of the age ; but, not-withstanding the abilities of the performers, this composition was so far from answering the expectations of the emperor and his court in the execution, that he concluded the popes maestro di capella, in order to keep it a mystery, had put a trick upon him, and sent him another composition. Upon which, in great wrath, he sent an express to his holiness, with a complaint against the maestro di capella, which occasioned his immediate disgrace and dismission from the service of the papal chapel ; and in so great a degree was the pope offended at the supposed imposition of his composer, that, for a long time, he would neither see him nor hear his defence : however, at length the poor man got one of the cardinals to plead his cause, and to acquaint his holiness that the style of singing in his chapel, particularly in performing the "Miserere," was such as could not be expressed by notes, nor taught or transmitted to any other place, but by example ; for which reason the piece in question, though faithfully transcribed, must fail in its effect when performed elsewhere. His holiness did not understand music, and could hardly comprehend how the same notes should sound so differently in different places ; however, he ordered his maestro di capella to write down his defence, in order to be sent to Vienna, which was done ; and the emperor, seeing no other way of gratifying his wishes in respect to this composition, begged of the pope that some of the musicians in the service of his holiness might be sent to Vienna, to instruct those in the service of his chapel how to perform the "Miserere" of Allegri.