"They also wondered greatly at my piety"

Tuck says she's the new Kiri Te Kanawa. Where have we been? Spending too much time in the blogosphere worrying about the future of the shining city upon a hill, no doubt. American soprano Renée Fleming is the new light of our life. Click here to watch and listen to her breathtaking "Ave Maria" from a November 2005 concert of "the world’s best-loved sacred songs and arias in front of a packed audience in Mainz’s beautiful Romanesque Cathedral."

"My new songs from Scott's Lady of the Lake especially had much success. They also wondered greatly at my piety, which I expressed in a hymn to the Holy Virgin and which, it appears, grips every soul and turns it to devotion," Franz Schubert wrote to his father and stepmother re the Ave Maria composed in about 1825:

It was written for voice and piano and first Published in 1826 as Op 52 no 6. The words most commonly used with Schubert's music are not the words that the composer originally set to music. Franz Schubert actually wrote the music for an excerpt from the poem "The Lady of the Lake" by Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832), which was translated into German by Adam Storck. Schubert called his piece Ellens dritter Gesang (Ellen's third song) . . .

The original words by Sir Walter Scott . . . include many references to the Latin "Ave Maria" prayer. This, no doubt, inspired an unknown person to fit the Latin "Ave Maria" prayer text to Schubert's notes.

Big-time thanks to The Ugly American at SondraKiStan for the heads up re American diva Renée Fleming singing Schubert's transcendent "Ave Maria." A few notes from our imail correspondence this evening:

She: THANKS for the link!!!! Nice to hear the Ave Maria sung by a hottie!!!

We: Yes. Schubert sung by a hottie . . . It doesn't get any better.

She: How thrilling it must be to perform such a masterwork so beautifully. When we get tears in our eyes, we know they have hit a home run . . . As a woman, I can imagine the agony of sacrificing one's child . . . just as all the mothers of military personnel might potentially do . . . the greater good DOES matter . . . Again, thank you for the link. I am on my 5th replay.

We: I am on my eleventy-second.

Can't get enough. The best way to listen is with the Latin (left) and English translations side by side:

Ave Maria                  Hail Mary,
gratia plena                full of grace.
Dominus tecum          The Lord is with thee.
Benedicta tu              Blessed art thou,
Et benedictus            and blessed
Fructus ventris tui      is the fruit of thy womb.

Sancta Maria             Holy Mary,
Mater Dei                  Mother of God,
Ora pro nobis             pray for us
Peccatoribus             sinners
Nunc et in                 now and in
Hora mortis nostrae   the hour of our death.

Ora pro nobis peccatoribus says it all.

Comments

[goomp]

Fleming's rendition is truly extraordinary. I remember how moving and pleasurable it was to sing that piece with the Glee Club at GDA back in 1937 and 38.

[Teresa]

Keep your eyes open for a movie from 1938 called Mad About Music with Deanna Durbin. She sings the Ave Maria near the beginning of the movie. Can you imagine a movie being made now... first of all with anything resembling operatic singing - secondly with one of the songs being this particular piece.

It is sadly not available on DVD, but you may find it on being shown on TMC at some point.

Anyhow, thanks for the link to this version, it's beautiful.

[hnav]

such beauty and grace...

i'm smitten.

Ms. Renée Fleming is wow...

this music is a slice of heaven on Earth.

thank you Ms. Willis.

best wishes.

[smitty]

Enjoyed it, though opera is a Brill Cream thing for me.