Ave Maria

Franz Schubert 1797–1828
Score
First page of Ave Maria

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Themes & character
From Walter Scott, not liturgy·Ellens dritter Gesang·Universally adapted·Composed 1825

About the piece

Schubert composed this in 1825 as Ellens dritter Gesang, Ellen's third song, one of seven settings from Walter Scott's poem The Lady of the Lake in German translation. It is not a setting of the Latin prayer at all: Ellen sings it while sheltering in a cave, and the words merely open with the greeting "Ave Maria." The Latin text most listeners now know was fitted to Schubert's melody later by other hands. Schubert himself wrote to his father that the piece's devotional effect seemed to move everyone who heard it, which he attributed to having felt the devotion genuinely himself.

The composer

Franz Schubert
Franz Schubert
1797–1828

Franz Peter Schubert was an Austrian composer of the late Classical and early Romantic eras. He was immensely prolific despite living a short life, leaving behind a vast oeuvre of more than 1,000 compositions, including over 600 Lieder and other vocal works, seven complete symphonies, sacred music, operas, incidental music, and a large body of piano and chamber music. Among these are the songs "Gretchen am Spinnrade", "Erlkönig" and "Ave Maria"; the Trout Quintet; the Symphony No. 8 in B minor (Unfinished); the Symphony No. 9 in C major ; the String Quartet No. 14 in D minor ; the String Quintet in C major; the Impromptus for solo piano; the last three piano sonatas; the Fantasia in F minor for piano four hands; the incidental music to the play Rosamunde; the song cycles Die schöne Müllerin and Winterreise; and the song collection Schwanengesang.

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