Oeuvres non publiées de la Collection Altaemps

Description

Gregorio Allegri (1582-1652), admitted as a singer after a competition in December 1629 and then appointed maestro of the papal chapel for the jubilee year 1650, achieved lasting fame through the psalm Miserere, transcribed by the young Mozart after hearing it only once in the Sistine Chapel. However, many other of his works deserve attention, such as the eight-voice mass “In lectulo meo,” written on the basis of a motet, also for eight voices, by the Franco-Flemish composer Pierre Bonhomme (c. 1555-1617), both recorded here. The disc also includes a brief secular cantata for voice and continuo, and two of the Lamentations of Jeremiah, for four voices. The various sections are interspersed with instrumental “Canzone,” some attributed to Allegri, others for two half-choirs by Giovanni Anerio, fifteen years his senior, which prevents any risk of a monotonous impression on listening. Recorded at the Pontifical Institute of Sacred Music in Rome, this well-conceived program, in a performance marked by great fervor by a homogeneous ensemble, offers a highly valuable discovery of Allegri’s works, some previously unpublished, showing how impossible it is to reduce him to his Miserere. (Bruno Fargette)