2,384 views

Watch
- Search Videos
  
  Advanced search »
- Submit a New Video
Discuss
About
- Try clicking on the various channels to see videos posted to that channel - if you're into music you can click the Music channel to get more music sifts - go on and explore! Use the "hotness" when you have opened the channel link to get videos that have gotten a lot of votes, or use "newness" to have a look at the new sifts.
  When browsing sifts you like, have a look at the Related Posts list to see other related videos, click the tags under the video title to see more sifts tagged with the same tags or have a look at other sifts from the same user in the More Posts By list. If the sifted video is in a play list, have a look at the play list to see other interesting videos the Sift users have linked together.
  Enter the Sift Lounge to chat with online sifters about anything and everything, or read interesting posts in the Sift Talk forum.
  The Top New Videos list is always full of interesting, current videos. It is always recommended that you have a look through the Top New Videos, but also have a look at these:
  - Upcoming Unsifted Videos - active video submissions that neither are published to the front page nor archived to the submitter's personal queue
- Have you seen a really funny, surprising, scary, interesting, cute or in any other way extra good quality video?
  Post and share it here - VideoSift is the best video aggregator on the Web, where we share, discuss, promote, and interact with the best videos out there on the web. Post it here, and share it with the large community of video-interested users. And - you are guaranteed to find more very good videos here already!
  Mind you, we only share videos you discover that someone else has made; if you "self link," by posting a video you have made, have posted or have interests in, you risk the ban hammer - read the posting guidelines before posting. The sift is NOT for promoting your own videos - it is for sharing videos others have made.
  Submit a Video Now »
Login

First Recorded Instance of Musical Piracy in History

submitted by HistNerd

1 decade 7 years 10 months ago

This song was written by Gregorio Allegri during the 1630s. It was so coveted by the Catholic Church, that Pope Urban VIII forbid it to be copied or played anywhere but in the Sistine Chapel on Ash Wednesday, once a year. Mozart when he was 14 years old, came and listened to it and promptly wrote it out from memory. He gave it to a publisher in London, and after that the Catholic Church lifted the ban. Thus the first instance of musical piracy in history.

This particular version is sung by the New College Choir at Oxford. You may be intested to know that this choir is all male. The fantastic treble soloist you hear, is a boy, between the ages of 8 and 12.

I know that this one is not exactly a video . . . but, it's the Miserere, quite possibly one of the most famous accapella songs in history. I think it's worth sharing.

Click on part 2 to hear the rest.

To read up on the Miserere, click here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miserere_%28Allegri%29