For Ash Wednesday, let us consider the glorious setting of a penitential psalm that constitutes one of the most famous tales of music ‘piracy’ before the internet: the setting of Psalm 51 Miserere mei in decorated falsobordone by Gregorio Allegri associated with Holy Week services in the Sistine Chapel – within the Papal palace – and reportedly transcribed from memory by a young Mozart.

There seems to be some evidence that the work was known outside the capella in any case, so the tale of a closely guarded secret being thus published may be somewhat mythical, albeit compelling; a further claim, that Mendelssohn is responsible for a version transposed higher leading to the famous ‘high C’ I have also not been able to verify (though neither can I say I have personally falsified it…).

The rather hypnotic repetition of musical ideas alternating between two choirs and simple plainchant statements render the psalm text entirely luminous, and many hear angelic voices within (merely(?)) human performances of this work.

This is one of those instances in which there really is little I can add in writing my short post to what readers might hear if you simply go and listen to any of the numerous recordings available online; if you are able to hear it live, so much the better for you. The music itself is a prayer, setting the verbal prayer of the psalmist. Tradition and (of its time) innovation coexist in this music; the psalm itself contains many couplets which individually speak of repentance and through it of God’s mercy:

Wash me throughly; purge me with hyssop; hide thy face from my sins; create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me; cast me not away from thy presence.

Lent is a time of penance and penitence; Ash Wednesday an inherent memento mori. And yet, Psalm 51 also reminds us of God’s lovingkindness and the multitude of God’s mercies: חֶסֶד and רַחוּם both appear in the first verse. Thanks to one of the most beautiful pieces of music ever written (personal opinion, I suppose, rather than fact, but one I believe to be widely shared) our expression of penitence can inhabit the safe-space of God’s overwhelming love.