The penitential pews of St Patrick’s Cathedral, Melbourne, on a mid-winter’s evening are the perfect venue for a concert titled Miserere, Latin for ‘Have mercy’. A couple of hours sitting on cold, uncomfortable benches is enough for most people to plead for respite. And yet the rewards of this concert amply compensated for any discomfort, with some inspiring music enjoying the benefits of the cathedral’s soaring acoustic.The Melbourne Chorale’s well-designed program comprised three a capella pieces, each titled Miserere. It included familiar works by Gregorio Allegri and Henryk Górecki, and the world premiere of a new piece by the Australian Jesuit composer Christopher Willcock. These three works all have a religious theme, though each evidences a different approach to asking God for mercy.
Allegri’s Miserere is a setting of Psalm 50–51, the Latin text of which begins with the words ‘Miserere mei’. It was composed in the early 17th century for use in the Sistine Chapel during matins on Wednesday and Friday of Holy Week. Allegri’s setting has become one of the most famous works in the choral repertoire, firstly for its awe-inspiring music, but also for the story of how a young Mozart allegedly made a transcription of the secret score after a single hearing. The work’s popularity was much increased by the 1963 recording by the Choir of King’s College Cambridge, featuring the boy soprano Roy Goodman singing the angelic treble line with its ethereal high Cs.
Górecki’s Miserere is a very different work, written in 1981 as a response to brutal suppression of a demonstration by the Polish Solidarity movement. Górecki’s text consists of just five words: ‘Domine, Deus noster, miserere nobis’. The work builds layer upon layer for more than 30 minutes repeating the simple acclamation ‘O lord our God’, before releasing its tension in the humble supplication, ‘Have mercy on us’.Like the Allegri, Christopher Willcock’s work is a setting of the psalm in Latin. It is a text this composer should know well, for when not composing Willcock teaches Liturgical studies at the United Faculty of Theology in Melbourne.
Given the intense feeling in this psalm it might have been expected to set the English translation of the text, with its beautiful and powerful phrases such as ‘My sin stands ever before me,’ and ‘Wash me and I shall be whiter than snow’. But this work is a commission that arose from Willcock’s tenure as the