Ave Maria: A Song History

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The melody known everywhere as Schubert’s “Ave Maria” began as Ellens Gesang III, a song Franz Schubert wrote in 1825 after encountering an 1819 edition of Adam Storck’s German translation of Walter Scott’s narrative poem The Lady of the Lake.[1] The title refers to Ellen Douglas, the poem’s heroine, and the song itself is a prayer.[1] Storck’s German text for it begins with the words “Ave Maria.”[2] Schubert set several other passages of Storck’s translation in the same year, including two more songs for Ellen, a boat song and a coronach.[3]

Gold-ground painting of the Madonna holding the Christ Child, who reaches up to her veil

Duccio di Buoninsegna, Madonna and Child, tempera and gold on wood, ca. 1290–1300. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Public domain (CC0). Shown for its subject; it has no connection to Schubert’s song.

Unlike most of Schubert’s output, the song was printed while he was still alive.[1] The Viennese firm of Artaria issued the set in 1826 as Sieben Gesänge aus Walter Scott’s Fräulein vom See, Op. 52, including Ellen’s third song (now catalogued as D. 839) under the subtitle “Hymne an die Jungfrau,” printed with both German and English words.[4][5] Schubert did not write it as church music, but its opening words probably led to the melody being adopted for the Latin Catholic prayer of the same name.[1] It reached perhaps its widest audience as the quiet closing segment of Walt Disney’s Fantasia (1940).[1]

Schubert’s song should not be confused with the other famous “Ave Maria,” by Charles Gounod, who added a new melody above the first prelude of J. S. Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier.[6] Gounod’s piece first took shape around 1852–53 as a Méditation on the prelude, and the version setting the Latin prayer was performed to acclaim at the Théâtre-Lyrique on 24 May 1859.[6]

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Sources

  1. Encyclopaedia Britannica: "Ave Maria!".
  2. Oxford Song: "Ellens Gesang III".
  3. Oxford Song: "Adam Storck".
  4. The Morgan Library & Museum: "Sieben Gesänge aus Walter Scott's Fräulein vom See, Op. 52".
  5. Harvard Loeb Music Library: "Newly Digitized: Schubert Songs".
  6. G. Henle Verlag: "Gounod, Ave Maria (HN 1012), Preface".