Ave Maria — Hail Mary
The bottom line of this essay — literally — is a YouTube performance of Franz Biebl’s arrangement of the Ave Maria and a copy of the score. If you just want to view these and skip the intervening thousand words of commentary, jump to the bottom. If you don’t even want that, have a nice day, LOL.
The Ave Maria is an ancient prayer of the Roman Catholic Church, also used in the Eastern Orthodox, Slavonic, Lutheran, and Anglican Churches. Its first use dates from the mid–11th Century CE and seems to have reached its final form at the close of the 16th Century. In the Latin Church, it is also the basis of devotionals such as the Angelus and the Rosary.
Ave Maria, gratia plena,
Dominus tecum,
benedicta tu in mulieribus,
et benedictus fructus ventris tui, Jesus.
Sancta Maria, mater Dei,
ora pro nobis peccatoribus.
Sancta Maria, mater Dei,
ora pro nobis nunc et in hora mortis nostrae.
Amen.
Hail Mary, full of grace,
the Lord is with thee:
blessed art thou amongst women,
and blessed is the Fruit of thy womb, Jesus.
Holy Mary, Mother of God,
pray for us sinners.
Holy Mary, Mother of God,
pray for us now and at the hour of our death.
Amen.
The prayer derives from two passages in Luke’s Gospel, the Annunciation (Luke 1:26–38) and the Visitation (Luke 1:39–45). The succeeding passage is the source of the Magnificat, a canticle also known as the Song of Mary (Luke 1:46–55).
There are dozens of musical settings of the Ave Maria, including plainsong (chant) and as arrangements for a solo voice with instrumental or choral accompaniment. The most well–known of these is likely by Franz Schubert. There are also multi–part choral arrangements, including those by Edward Elgar, Josquin de Prez, Anthony Sylvestre, Giulio Caccini, and others. All are beautiful for their time and place. But I find that one composition stands incomparably higher in originality, harmonic richness, and emotional power — the a cappela arrangement by Franz Xaver Biebl (1906–2001). For all its potency, it might be one of the most obscure.
Biebl’s work is based on the Angelus, a liturgical prayer incorporating three versicles from Luke’s account, with the first half of the Ave used as a refrain. Biebl uses the second half of the Ave as the final choral setting.
Angelus Domini nuntiavit Mariae
et concepit de Spiritu Sancto.
Ave Maria, gratia plena … (refrain)
Maria dixit:
Ecce ancilla Domini
Fiat mihi secundum verbum tuum.
Ave Maria, gratia plena … (refrain)
Et verbum caro factum est
Et habitavit in nobis.
Ave Maria, gratia plena … (refrain)
Sancta Maria, mater Dei,
ora pro nobis peccatoribus.
Sancta Maria, ora pro nobis
nunc et in hora mortis nostrae.
Amen.
The Angel of the Lord announced to Mary
And she conceived by the Holy Spirit.
Hail Mary, full of grace… (refrain)
Mary said:
Behold the handmaiden of the Lord.
Do to me according to your word,
Hail Mary, full of grace… (refrain)
And the Word was made flesh
And dwelt among us.
Hail Mary, full of grace… (refrain)
Holy Mary, Mother of God,
pray for us sinners.
Holy Mary, Mother of God,
pray for us now and at the hour of our death.
Amen.
The original work was for a men’s ensemble with two choirs, a four–part TTBB and a three–part TTB. Biebl also wrote arrangements for SATB/SAT, TTBB/SAA, and SSAA/SSA choirs. The different arrangements present strikingly contrasting harmonic blends due to the existence of rare beasts called countertenors in male choirs, and to the differences in timbre between male and female voices, even when singing the same exact pitch. The same is true for choirs with choristers, boys with incredibly sweet voices that have not yet “broken” into the lower registers of the adult male.
My favorite performance is by Chanticleer, the renowned 12–voice men’s ensemble. The name translates as “cock” or “rooster”, from the Old French through Middle English in medieval stories of Reynard the Fox; chanter (to sing) + cler (clear or loud). Denizens of metropolitan Philadelphia may also recognize the name as belonging to the 48–acre botanical garden built on the grounds of the Rosengarten estate in Wayne, Pennsylvania, whose entrance gate incorporates a carved stone rooster.
I have always loved the sound of male ensembles above all others. No, I’m not sexist, or in today’s vernacular of cultural division, gender–insensitive. It’s just that the richness of the lower registers of male singers stimulates an ASMR in me like no other. An Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response (ASMR) is a tingling sensation that usually begins on the scalp and moves down the back of the neck and upper spine. It’s delicious, related to but not the same as a frisson, which involves more of the lower body and arms and can accompany an intense, not necessarily pleasant emotional experience.
There are several Chanticleer recordings of Biebl’s Ave Maria available on YouTube. The best of them is a high–quality, well–produced video of a “Chanticleer Christmas” live concert at St. Paul’s Cathedral on December 7, 2018. In my opinion, the Cathedral’s superb acoustics and the technical quality of the recording are unmatched anywhere else, excepting the studio recording of the album. It is best experienced on a large screen monitor and wearing high–end headphones. It is evident that the group was as engaged and moved by the music and their own performance as the audience was.
I found a scan of the score in what appears to be the public domain. I am a choral singer, and after I had viewed the video per ipsum a few times, listening while following the score augmented my enjoyment of the piece enormously. It also answered a nagging question that had been bothering me. If each voice in the TTBB choir is doubled, those plus the trio sum to eleven. But Chanticleer always performs with a full 12–voice complement, so the twelfth singer necessarily has to join the TTBB choir. I imagined that this voice might have been an optional “floater”, singing different parts at times to beef up this line or that. That may be true, but I also found that in measure 11 (repeated three times in the refrain) the Bass I line splits, and in measures 23 and 31, so does the Bass II line. So the ninth singer is actually necessary if those parts are not to become undoubled.
Well, if you can spare six more minutes of your time, there’s nothing left but to enjoy it; click here for the video, and here to view or download the score.
All the best,
From Broomall, PA
Monday, August 14 at 5:30 PM,
Rex
