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Track(s) taken from CDA66801/2

Ave Maria

composer
Prelude No 1 from The Well-tempered Clavier
composer
1859
author of text
Antiphon for the Blessed Virgin Mary

Dame Ann Murray (mezzo-soprano), Graham Johnson (piano)
Recording details: May 1993
St Paul's Church, New Southgate, London, United Kingdom
Produced by Arthur Johnson
Engineered by Keith Warren
Release date: October 1993
Total duration: 2 minutes 54 seconds

Cover artwork: Lord Byron and the maid of Athens. Sir William Allen (1782-1850)
Roy Miles Gallery, 29 Bruton Steet, London W1
 

Other recordings available for download

Pembroke College Girls' Choir Cambridge, Anna Lapwood (conductor), Joseph Beadle (piano)

Reviews

‘Exemplary … enchanting … ravishingly sung’ (The Daily Telegraph)

‘Superb … perfection … best of the year’ (The Sunday Times)

«Uniformement exquis» (Répertoire, France)

«C'est remarquable. Un coffret qui devient un événement» (Compact, France)

'Un stupendo doble compacto' (CD Compact, Spain)
The history of Ave Maria is a chequered one even by Gounod’s standards of multiple versions of works, and a recycling of material worthy of the most careful and economical of French chefs. The very musical idea is already a thrifty one, perhaps more worthy of the plagiarizing pop musicians of today than a great original composer. This descant to the first C major Prelude from Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier is so hugely celebrated however (and so often tastelessly and badly performed) that it requires something of an effort to re-discover how truly felicitous was the result of the composer’s outrageous hubris in marrying his tune to an ‘accompaniment’ by a composer greater than he could ever hope to be. Gounod had heard Mendelssohn play Bach’s organ works in Leipzig in 1843; during the period in which he was organist of the Missions Etrangères he had made a point of replacing the customary meretricious organ voluntaries with Palestrina and Bach—music which was not at all well known in the France of the 1850s. In this light it can be argued that Gounod’s piece was probably meant as a popularizing tribute to a neglected master. The original song was a setting of Lamartine (from his Recueillements poétiques) entitled Premier prélude de J S Bach. This was composed in 1852. It was arranged as a choral piece with violin obbligato in 1856, and in 1859 someone had the bright idea (perhaps the composer himself) that the Ave Maria text could be made to fit the vocal line. Since then its progress through the world has been remarkable and wide-ranging. For example, Alessandro Moreschi, the sole castrato of the Sistine Chapel to survive into the early recording era, made a recording of this song. Despite all the bizarreries perpetrated on this music, it deserves a fresh hearing as a wonderful example of Gounod’s melodic invention and ingenuity.

from notes by Graham Johnson © 1993

Other albums featuring this work

Celestial Dawn
Studio Master: SIGCD714Download onlyStudio Master FLAC & ALAC downloads available
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