‘Miserere mei, Deus, secundum magnam misericordiam tuam’ – ‘Have mercy on me, o God, in your great goodness’. These words open Psalm 51, the fourth of the seven penitential psalms. The text goes on: ‘According to the abundance of your compassion blot out my offences. Wash me thoroughly from my wickedness.’ This prayer of repentance is attributed to none other than King David – the triumphant slayer of Goliath and the anointed king of Israel. Yet David was also an adulterer who abused his power, sending the husband of his beloved to the front lines – where death was all but certain. If even the crowned head of God’s chosen people could sin so gravely and be called to repentance – so goes the theological message – how much more should we plead with God for his grace?
With its deeply human plea for the forgiveness of our sins, the Miserere has woven itself into the fabric of the Catholic liturgy. It finds its fullest expression at the end of the Tenebrae, the ‘dark matins’ of Holy Thursday, Good Friday and Holy Saturday. As a cry for mercy, calling on God to turn toward humanity with compassion and love in the face of sin and suffering, the Miserere naturally carries over into the liturgy. For this reason, it also appears in the Gloria and Agnus Dei of the Latin Mass Ordinary, as in Bach’s Mass in B minor. It remains a prayer thrust heavenward in the darkest hours of the soul and the world alike.
From Josquin Desprez’s roughly 520-year-old five-part Miserere up to 20th- and 21st-century works by composers such as Arvo Pärt and Klaus Huber, the Ouverture spirituelle listens closely to the voices of the penitent. Naturally, Gregorio Allegri’s famous double-choir Miserere is not overlooked: at one time, copying the carefully guarded score in the Vatican was forbidden on pain of excommunication. Yet, according to legend, the 14-year-old Mozart transcribed it entirely from memory.
The Miserere also encompasses guilt that extends beyond the individual – whether it be humanity’s irreversible exploitation of the natural world, a theme explored by Patricia Kopatchinskaja, or moral systems that verge on cruelty, as in the case of Oscar Wilde, once condemned for his homosexuality.
Translation: Sebastian Smallshaw
