The Melody Spin Song Encyclopedia

Ave Maria-Franz Schubert- duet for Cello and Guitar

“If there is any one song that exemplifies what ‘Light Classical’, it might be Ave Maria. Franz Schubert wrote this setting of the Catholic Mass component Ave Maria and is the most familiar. Because the setting of the mass to music was so common, this is not the only Ave Maria out there. The most famous example is the Bach and Gounod Ave Maria. Click here to check that out. Because the melody of Ave Maria is so long and flowing, I decided to make this arrangement for 2 guitars and cello with the cello taking that soaring melody.” - Darren Curtis Skanson

History of the Ave Maria - Ave Maria is a Hail Mary from the Latin Ave Maria (Salutatio Angelica), a traditional Catholic and Orthodox prayer calling for the intercession of Mary, the mother of Jesus. This setting was Written by Franz Shubert in 1825 for his “Songs from Sir Walter Scott”. This cycle contains the beloved Ellens dritter Gesang, D.839, today more popularly though mistakenly referred to as “Schubert’s Ave Maria“. This version for 2 classical guitars with cello solo also has a unique componet. Skanson has composed a new section that alludes to the other famous Ave Maria from Gounod/Bach. This section quotes certain melodies and builds to a wonderful climax before returning to the origianl Schubert setting. Simply wonderful.

Schubert effectively established the German lied as a new art form in the 19th century. He was helped by the late 18th-century outburst of lyric poetry and the new possibilities for picturesque accompaniment offered by the piano, but his own genius is by far the most important factor. The songs fall info four main structural groups - simple strophic, modified strophic, through-composed (e.g. Die junge Nonne) and the ’scena’ type (Der Wanderer); the poets range from Goethe, Schiller and Heine to Schubert’s own versifying friends. Reasons for their abiding popularity rest not only in the direct appeal of Schubert’s melody and the general attractiveness of his idiom but also in his unfailing ability to capture musically both the spirit of a poem and much of its external detail. He uses harmony to represent emotional change (passing from minor to major, magically shifting to a 3rd-related key, tenuously resolving a diminished 7th, inflecting a final strophe to press home its climax) and accompaniment figuration to illustrate poetic images (moving water, shimmering stars, a church bell). With such resources he found innumerable ways to illuminate a text, from the opening depiction of morning in Ganymed to the leaps of anguish in Der Doppelgänger