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Comment by recallingmemory | Hacker News Reader

"Miserere mei, Deus" is one of the most beautiful pieces of music I've ever heard and I'm not religious nor do I understand the language it's written in. I've never thought of those as prerequisites to enjoying a piece of music.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rwFXR5ett6U

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A classic! The Allegri Miserere gets used whenever a movie soundtrack needs some sacred choral music. That floating soprano line between the sections is something else.

For me, the Kyrie from Tomás Luis de Victoria's Officium Defunctorum (1605) is the best piece of music ever written, period. And I say this after having listened to a lot of music of various styles.

Here's the piece with two great performers:

- The Sixteen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MO-C_zC6KiQ

- The Tallis Scholars: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KOko0MqkNcc

Enjoy!

John Browne (1453-1490) - O Regina Mundi Clara (Tallis Scholars Ensemble)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y28FW6JBd7w

Honestly? Join a community choir and you will very quickly learn to appreciate all forms of choral music. Choral music is about groups of humans acting in an extremely organized and coordinated way. It's a kind of collabarative effort that requires full engagement of the senses: you have to LISTEN and FEEL and EXPRESS all in rhythmic time while also WATCHING each other and your director. It takes concerted effort and everyone has to be locked in or it all falls apart....but when you check all those boxes? Absolute transcendence.

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