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Ave verum corpus (Mozart)

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Ave verum corpus
Motet by W. A. Mozart
Mozart's autograph of Ave verum corpus motet
KeyD major
CatalogueK. 618
OccasionCorpus Christi
TextAve verum corpus
LanguageLatin
Composed17 June 1791 (1791-06-17): Baden bei Wien
VocalSATB chorus
Instrumental
  • strings
  • organ

Ave verum corpus ("Hail, True Body"), (K. 618), is a motet in D major composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in 1791. It is a setting of the Latin hymn of the same name. Mozart wrote it for Anton Stoll, a friend who was the church musician of St. Stephan in Baden bei Wien. The motet was composed for the feast of Corpus Christi; the autograph is dated 17 June 1791. It is scored for SATB choir, string instruments and organ.

History

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St. Stephan, Baden, the church for which Mozart composed the motet

Mozart composed the motet in 1791 in the middle of writing his opera Die Zauberflöte.[1] He wrote it while visiting his wife Constanze, who was pregnant with their sixth child and staying in the spa Baden bei Wien.[1] Mozart set the 14th century Eucharistic hymn in Latin "Ave verum corpus". He wrote the motet for Anton Stoll, a friend of his.[2] Stoll was the musical director of the parish St. Stephan, Baden.[3] The setting was composed to celebrate the feast of Corpus Christi; the autograph is dated 17 June 1791. (The Feast of Corpus Christi falls on the Thursday following Trinity Sunday, and in 1791 was observed on June 23.) The composition is only forty-six bars long and is scored for SATB choir, string instruments, and organ. Mozart's manuscript contains minimal directions, with only a single sotto voce marking at the beginning.

The motet was composed less than six months before Mozart's death.[2] It foreshadows "aspects of the Requiem such as declamatory gesture, textures, and integration of forward- and backward-looking stylistic elements".[4] While the Requiem is a dramatic composition, the motet expresses the Eucharistic thoughts with simple means, suited for the church choir in a small town.[2][5]

Franz Liszt made transcriptions of Mozart's motet for piano solo [Searle 461a] and for organ [Searle 674d], and also quoted Mozart in his fantasie piece Evocation à la Chapelle Sixtine [Searle 461], in versions for piano, organ, orchestra, and piano duet.[6] Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky incorporates an orchestration of Liszt's transcription in his fourth orchestral suite, Mozartiana, Op. 61, a tribute to Mozart's music.[7]

Melody

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The beginning of the melody is as follows:

\relative c' { \set Staff.midiInstrument = #"choir aahs" \key d \major \time 2/2 \tempo "Adagio" a'2 ^\markup {sotto voce} d4 (fis,) a (gis) g2 g4 (b) a (g) g4 (fis)fis2 e2. e4 fis4 fis g g g2 (fis4) fis e1} \addlyrics { A -- ve __ a -- ve ve2 -- rum cor -- pus na -- tum de Ma -- ri -- a Vir -- gi -- ne }

Recording

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Ave verum corpus
Performed by the Senftenberg Orchestra and Chorus

References

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  1. ^ a b Küster, Konrad (1996). Mozart: A Musical Biography. Translated by Mary Whittall. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 372. ISBN 978-0198163398.
  2. ^ a b c "Ave Verum Corpus, K 618", Encyclopædia Britannica, retrieved 31 May 2018
  3. ^ Heartz, Daniel (2009). Mozart, Haydn and Early Beethoven: 1781–1802. New York: W. W. Norton. p. 264. ISBN 9780393285789.
  4. ^ Wolff, Christoph (1998). Mozart's Requiem: Historical and Analytical Studies, Documents, Score. Translated by Mary Whittall. Berkeley, California: University of California Press. p. 33.
  5. ^ Rusch, Abraham (14 March 2014). "Mozart's Communion: A Holistic Harmonic Analysis of Ave Verum Corpus". stolaf.edu. Archived from the original on 28 December 2014. Retrieved 31 May 2018.[verification needed]
  6. ^ Walker, Alan (1996). Franz Liszt: The Final Years 1861–1886. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press. pp. 42–43.
  7. ^ Brown, David (1992). Tchaikovsky: The Final Years, 1885–1893. New York: W. W. Norton. p. 115. ISBN 9780393337570.
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