Miserere

From “desolate and cold” penitence to a glowing conclusion, radiant “with devotion”, James MacMillan’s Miserere distils Holy Week’s vast journey of faith into 10 striking minutes of music. Premiered in 2009, the Scottish composer’s choral setting of Psalm 51 is a dark, knotty wrestle with a text that confronts man’s sin, but also affirms his redemption. There’s a nod to Allegri’s famous setting of these words in the chant that supplies two moments of stillness—emotional pivot-points—at the centre of the work’s “interlocking sections”. The music opens with muted melancholy, groping its way out of darkness with a yearning theme for tenors and basses. This gradually moves up through the voices, fractured into canons and counterpoint. The Psalmist’s plea for cleansing (“Asperges me”) brings all voices together in a collective petition, heard and answered in a radiant chorale-like melody that supplies an unexpected coda, finally banishing the anxieties of the opening theme.