Complete sources

The transcriptions of verses 1 and 5 in Appendix 9 have been made from a collation of sources 1, 2, 3 and 4. Verse 3 is based on 2, 3 and 4. 1 provides a unique reading for verse 3, so has been transcribed separately in Appendix 10.

1 and 2 London, British Library Add. MS 31525 (1) and (2) (not mentioned in Amann, Allegris Miserere)

Two manuscripts, both of ornamented versions of the Allegri Miserere; complete, including verse 20b a9. Acquired by the British Museum in 1881 from the English collector Julian Marshall, who himself bought it from Joseph Warren, organist, musicologist, collector and teacher, whose name is found in pencil at the top of the title page. Perhaps bought by Warren in Rome between 1822 and 1826. Pencil annotations (apparently in Warren’s hand) in 2 as follows. On the title page: ‘It ought to be sung 4 tones higher, in C’; on the first page of the score: ‘Misura largo assai’ (‘speed very slow and broad’), and ‘bisogna alzare qua una nota e poi tornare negli soli voci de due soprano’ [‘you have to rise one note here and then return in the solo voices of the two sopranos’). Presumably this refers to the rise and fall of the parallel portamento on the word Miserere, and suggests that Warren is commenting on a live performance in which either the other voices did not execute the ornament, or he did not hear it. In later verses he supplies some missing text in the bass part, as well as notes about pronunciation.

The two manuscripts are in different hands, and both are mistakenly attributed to Bai. 1 – Add. 31525(1) – has the following title page, in the same hand as the score.

Miserere/del Sig. Mro Baj./Come si eseguisce nella Cappella Pontificia/Di Roma/In Roma presso Bened Morganti Via de Crociferi N°119

The title page of 2 – Add. 31525(2) – has simply ‘Miserere’ in the same hand as 1, indicating that they were bought at the same time and place. Probably bound together later: the pages of 1 have been trimmed, then pasted at the spine to give dimensions of 28cm × 21cm, whereas 2 is bound as found (29.5cm × 22cm). 1 uses pages of eight staves until fol. 18, then takes ten stave pages in preparation for the final verse. 2 uses ten stave pages throughout.