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Allegri’s Miserere & The Renaissance

Ian Thomas

 

The Time – The Renaissance 1450-1600         

• The golden age of polyphony in church music

• Slow development of instrumental music

 

The period known as the Renaissance, around the beginning of the 16th century, was when people gradually began to look beyond the confines of the Church to the world outside. Music of the early Renaissance was still mostly inspired by and written for the Church. The sixteenth century witnessed four major musical phenomena: the polyphonic school reached its peak, instrumental music started up, the first opera was produced and music began to be printed. For most people, the opportunity to see and read music had up to now to been there, now, musicians could stand around a printed score and sing or play their part. Music was now widely available.

New musical developments have always caused controversy. Music before the Renaissance and had been based on and around Plainchant. It had taken a thousand years from the earliest plainchant for music to develop into a highly sophisticated art form such as the choral works by Palestrina, Victoria and Byrd.

Example of a Plainchant manuscript – c. 1520

 

 

 

Musical Developments during the Renaissance include:

·         Musical harmony – the rules governing the relationship between chords and the development of cadences.

·         Before the Renaissance Period the tenor part was the most important part of a choral work, it would normally have the melody or in most cases the melody would be a plainchant melody. During the Renaissance this changed and all parts in a choral work became equally as important as each other - polyphony.

1598 Example of polyphony- The kyrie from Palestrina's Missa Papae Marcelli was printed in his Second Book of Masses

 

 

 

Renaissance 1450 to 1600 - Timeline

 

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The Man - Gregorio Allegri

Composer

Country Italy

Born 1582
Died 17 Feb 1652

 

Gregorio Allegri was born in Rome in 1582, and became a chorister at the Papal Chapel in 1591 until 1596, when his voice broke. He subsequently became a tenor at S. Luigi del Francesca for the next 8 years, and studied with Giovanni Maria Nanino from 1600 until 1607. In 1604 he was a Singer and Composer at Tivoli and Fermi, and then became Maestro di Cappella at S. Spirito, in Sassia, Rome in 1628. 6th December 1629 saw his appointment as a singer in the Papal Choir, until his death on February 17th, 1652, aged 70. He wrote a large body of work, of both instrumental and sacred choral music, favouring the style of his mentor Nanino, and his before him, Palestrina.

 

The portrait above is taken from a copperplate engraving of 1711. He is shown holding a five part choir book with the opening G minor chord and the word Miserere. The legend reads: Gregorio Allegri, Singer in the Papal Chapel at Rome, Most Excellent Composer, died on 18th(sic) February, 1652

Papal Chapel at Rome

 

                                                         

The Work  - Miserere Mei

 

'Miserere mei'. Setting of Psalm 51 for nine voices (two separate choirs of 4 and 5). Length 10 minutes. The piece mixes two styles: plainsong (single-line chanting in unison, the 'old-style' religious vocal music) and rich polyphony (different voices singing different lines which weave in and out of each other, the 'new-style' harmony as developed by composers such as Palestrina).