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"Twice only, once in the Sistine Chapel, and again in St. Stephen's at Vienna." "But I thought its production was forbidden elsewhere than in Rome," said the princess. "Formerly that was the case," replied Manasseh, "the publication of Allegri's work being strictly prohibited; but after Mozart had heard it once and written it down from memory, its reproduction could not be prevented.
Deronda, having looked enough at the German translation of the Hebrew in the book before him to know that he was chiefly hearing Psalms and Old Testament passages or phrases, gave himself up to that strongest effect of chanted liturgies which is independent of detailed verbal meaning like the effect of an Allegri's Miserere or a Palestrina's Magnificat.
Sultan, her cat, which might have mewed Allegri's miserere in the Sixtine Chapel, had filled her heart and sufficed for the quantity of passion which existed in her. None of her dreams had ever proceeded as far as man. She had never been able to get further than her cat. Like him, she had a mustache. Her glory consisted in her caps, which were always white.
The music sung in Saint Peter's, and, indeed, in most Roman churches, is never rehearsed nor practised. In the course of a year the same piece may be sung several times, and the old choristers may become acquainted with a good deal of music in this way, but never otherwise. Mozart is reported to have learned Allegri's Miserere by ear, and to have written it down from memory.
From that time only Allegri's and Bai's were sung in the Pope's chapel; till Pius VII directed the celebrated Baini to compose a new Miserere, which has received well-merited applause. Since the year 1821 all three, viz.
Baini's, Bai's, and Allegri's Misereres are sung on the three successive days, and generally in the order in which we have mentioned them: the two latter are sometimes blended together.
And in this darkness, symbolic of grief and mourning, an invisible choir sings the Miserere, Allegri's world-renowned composition, whose mystic notes bring so vividly before us that last scene on Golgotha, the agony of the dying Saviour, the taunts of the lictors, the wailing of the holy women, the shrieks of the dead whose graves are opened, and who cry aloud for mercy, and finally the rending of the Temple curtain, and the chorus of angels in heaven.
At Rome Mozart attended the Sistine Chapel and wrote the score of Allegri's great mass, forbidden by the pope to be copied, from the memory of a single performance.
There is terrible fighting at the door of the Sistine Chapel, to hear the Miserere, which is sure to be Baini's when it is said to be Allegri's, as well as at the railing of the Chapel, where the washing of the feet takes place, and at the supper-table, where twelve country-boors represent the Apostolic company, and are waited on by the Pope, in a way that shows how great a sham the whole thing is.
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