Allegri's Miserere: not what he wrote

On this Good Friday, as we meditate on Christ's sacrifice for our sins, it is worth looking at this familiar choral setting of Psalm 51 (50 by LXX and Vulgate numbering): Gregorio Allegri's Miserere. It seems that what we are accustomed to hearing in this piece is not what Allegri actually wrote in the early 17th century. My daughter alerted me to this fascinating account, by Rory McCleery and Ben Byram-Wigfield, of the piece's development and elaboration over the centuries. Among other things, the story of Pope Urban VIII threatening to excommunicate anyone who performed it outside the Sistine Chapel lacks any basis in available evidence. Moreover, the high notes sung by the soprano are due to an error in transcription made as recently as the 1880s. They were not in the composer's original.

As I watched this, I thought of the game of telephone that we played as children. It's amazing that an iconic piece of music could become so in a version foreign to its composer's intentions.