Psalm 51, the Miserere, occupies the central position of the seven Penitential Psalms and probably remains the one most frequently read or sung today. Being a deeply personal text for self-examination—it uses the first person throughout: have mercy on me … cleanse me … deliver me … open my lips—it does not easily adapt for people acting together, although by tradition countless congregations heard it in Latin, in many cases without much understanding. Music, of course, glosses how the psalm is received. The setting by Gregorio Allegri for the Sistine Chapel, that we considered last year, possesses a beauty that for some enables a kind of ecstasy for contrition, comfortable in its religiosity. In contrast, the setting by Jan Dismas Zelenka, ZWV 57, provokes a powerful reaction that is far from comfortable, at least with its opening movement that sets only the first three words, ‘Miserere mei, Deus’ (Have mercy on me, O God). The strong dissonances and the cutting rhythms in a sustained onslaught from the instruments disturb and challenge the hearer, and the work ends with a reprise of the same music. By this means Zelenka frames the psalm with a forceful passion that does not allow listeners to hide behind the fact of not understanding the Latin.

The second movement is a fugue that by itself delivers the whole of the psalm. It is highly condensed—all nineteen verses take only five minutes, and some portions of the Latin occur without repetition in only one of the four vocal parts—but the words ‘Miserere mei, Deus’ are reiterated as the fugue subject throughout. The Doxology follows in movements iii-v, and even here the same motto of ‘Miserere mei, Deus’ is worked in:

iii (with solo soprano):
Gloria Patri, et Fílio, et Spiritui Sancto.

iv (choral): Gloria Patri, et Fílio, et Spirtui Sancto.

v: Miserere mei, Deus.
Sicut erat in principio, et nunc et semper, et in saecula sæculorum. Amen.

vi (reprise of movement i): Miserere mei, Deus.

* *  This is the third post in a series for Lent and Holy Week, 2021 * *

Above: The opening movement of Zelenka’s Miserere in C minor, ZWV 57, performed by the Accademia Barocca Lucernensis, directed by Javier Ulises Illán, in a CD-recording session in 2019.

Below: A concert performance of the whole work in Maria Magdalena Church, Stockholm, on 17 November 2019 by the Maria Magdalena Vokalensemble and instrumentalists, directed by Mats Nilsson.

Zelenka composed the work in 1738 (his manuscript is dated 12 March, the Wednesday in the fourth week of Lent in that year) in Dresden, where he was the official composer for church music at the court of Friedrich August, Elector of Saxony and King of Poland.