Allegri’s Miserere was one of the earliest pieces of choral music I can remember – along with “This is the Record of John” from the famous album “World of King’s“. Despite studying music at university and singing in choirs for years, I’d never really thought more about the piece itself. That changed in 2018 when I had the opportunity to sing the Miserere with a church choir in Oxford, and started practising the alto part with the help of recordings in my fairly extensive collection of choral music CDs. For some reason I made a list – always a risky thing to do if you’re prone to collecting things – and added a few more Miserere recordings to my CD shelves.
In 2020, when we couldn’t perform the Miserere during Holy Week due to COVID, the Miserere became my go-to music for meditation when the world was in turmoil. I can’t quite remember how it happened, but fuelled by the need to focus on something outside of work during the first period of lockdown, I dusted off the original list and decided to complete it by identifying and and obtaining every original recording. For completely different reasons, I’d also been investigating how to extend the WordPress publishing platform to build databases, so the challenge of compiling an online discography was a perfect reason to learn some coding skills and combine the projects.
So here we are! In the last couple of years the list has became a very big spreadsheet and it’s growing fast. The collection is expanding and I’ve found some real gems – including what I believe is probably the earliest known published recording of the Miserere – and it’s nothing like you’d expect. The site is online and working and this is the first post. I have lots to share, but a long journey ahead to make it ready. Until then miserere.org will stay under the google radar and won’t be discoverable.
Mike Smith
Curator, miserere.org