It being Sunday, it’s time for something spiritual to feed the soul. So how about that staple of the classical repertoire – Ave Maria. We will be looking at a variety of versions and providing you with an opportunity to choose your favourite. We shall approach this task chronologically.
Schubert wrote a piece in 1825, entitled Ellen’s Third Song, as part of his seven song from Walter Scott’s popular poem ‘The Lady of the Lake’. The opening words and refrain of Ellen’s song, namely “Ave Maria” (Latin for “Hail Mary”), may have led to the idea of adapting Schubert’s melody as a setting for the full text of the traditional Roman Catholic prayer. The Latin version of the “Ave Maria” is now so frequently used with Schubert’s melody that it has led to the misconception that he originally wrote the melody as a setting for the “Ave Maria”. This piece has been used in many settings from the movies the Bride of Frankenstein and Fantasia to the anime Cowboy Bebop. In February 2020, Christina Aquilera performed “Ave Maria” to critical acclaim at Kobe Bryant’s memorial service.
Although Bach wrote the music used in our second version of Ave Maria in 1722 as Prelude No. 1 in C Major, from Book I of The Well Tempered Clavier, it was not until 1853 when Charles Gounod took the tune in a slightly changed version. Gounod improvised the melody, and his future father-in-law Pierre Joseph Zimmermann transcribed the improvisation and in 1853 made an arrangement for violin (or cello) with piano and harmonium. In 1859, Jacques Leopold Heugel published a version with the familiar Latin text. The version of Bach’s prelude used by Gounod includes the “Schwencke measure” (m.23), a measure allegedly added by Christian Friedrich Gottlieb Schwencke in an attempt to correct what he or someone else erroneously deemed a “faulty” progression, even though this sort of progression was standard in Bach’s music. Opera singers, such as Nellie Melba and Luciano Pavarotti, as well as choirs have recorded it hundreds of times during the twentieth century.
Moving into the twentieth century for our third selection. This version is much-recorded and composed by Vladimir Vavilov around 1970. Vavilov himself published and recorded it in 1970 on the Melodiya label with the ascription “Anonymous”. It is believed that organist Mark Shakhin, one of the performers on the “Melodiya” LP, first ascribed the work to Giulio Caccini after Vavilov’s death, and gave the “newly-discovered scores” to other musicians. The organist Oleg Yanchenko then made an arrangement of the aria for a recording by Irina Arkhipova in 1987, after which the piece came to be famous worldwide. It bears a marked resemblance to Jerome Kern’s 1939 “All The Things You Are”.
Finally “Ave Maria” is a song by American singer Beyonce from her third studio album I Am…Sahsa Fierce (2008). Written by Ghost, Dench and Riddick in collaboration with its producers Knowles and production duo Stargate. As stated by Ghost, “Ave Maria” was inspired by Knowles’ and her own respective marriages. The song is a re-write of Schubert’s version”. It is instrumentally complete with a piano and strings. Throughout Knowles sings in a lower register with an operatic soprano. Lyrically, it speaks about being surrounded by friends but still feeling alone. Critical reception towards the song was mixed. Many contemporary critics praised its balladry and Knowles’ vocals while others dubbed it as merely a normal take on the original.
So what do you think?
