Sunday’s Gospel tells the story of the Annunciation. With that in mind, here is Chanticleer singing Franz Biebl’s beautiful Ave Maria. This is really a setting of the Angelus prayer, with the last part of the Ave Maria (Sancta Maria, Mater Dei, hora pro nobis peccatoribus . . .) added at the end.
Click on the video to go to the YouTube page which has the complete text in Latin and in English.
If you’ve never heard Chanticleer before, prepare to be impressed.
14 responses so far ↓
1 Eeyore // Dec 17, 2008 at 0:56
It’s beautiful, but really I prefer it with a tradition SATB choir. The arrangement they used has the bases (or baritones) taking the part usually sung by the sopranos. I guess it’s what you are used to hearing, and I heard this often because my youngest daughter’s high school choir sang it – and very well. They had an incredibly good director who challenged them and demanded perfection with every type of music they did. It was a public high school, so to do as much church music as they did, meant that they also did all sorts of other selections.
You know how YouTube pops up with other related videos when the one is done? I sat and listened to several of the other recordings, and remembered just what an inspiring Ave Maria this one is.
Thanks for the links.
Pat
2 ginger // Dec 17, 2008 at 2:19
Thanks for this. I wanted to crawl through my computer into the cathedral. Not just hear it but feel it, you know? Wow, I miss singing music of this genre…
3 RevJATB // Dec 17, 2008 at 8:38
Eeyore: The first time I heard it was a performance by an SATB chorus as well. But Biebl wrote the piece for men’s voices and it was only later reworked for both SATB and SSA choruses to make it more marketable. I think the original scoring (men’s voices) is particularly effective given that most of the text consists of the words of the angel Gabriel to Mary. I also love hearing that LOW bass note at the end!
ginger: Welcome! I know what you mean. Watching a video can only approximate the performance. Music NEEDS to be experienced live.
4 Eeyore // Dec 17, 2008 at 11:22
I didn’t know that – thanks for filling me in. I guess for me, whenever I hear it though, I see the faces of my daughter and her fellow choir members as they surrounded the audience. So my response is more sentimental than anything else, now that I think of it.
I plan to listen again today, only this time with better speakers than my laptop ones. Last night I couldn’t turn the volume up much because hubby was asleep.
Pat
5 Eeyore // Dec 17, 2008 at 11:27
Oh, I meant to add that daughter’s choir always sang this one surrounding the audience, if that wasn’t clear. My favorite memory though, was when we were in a church santuary in southern California when they went on their choir tour her senior year in 200, and I was lucky enough to go along as a chaperone. They did it in the same formation of standing along the outside walls, forming a circle, and since it was a practice, it was only the choir and the accompanying adults. The beautiful ringing sounds of Ave Marie still linger after almost nine years.
Pat
6 RevJATB // Dec 17, 2008 at 11:27
Eeyore, if you look on YouTube, there is a higher quality version of this same piece, sung by Chanticleer, but it’s music only (there’s a still picture of a treble clef or something like that on screen during the music). I opted for this one because it had video as well as sound, but the other would do your better speakers more justice!
7 Mo // Dec 17, 2008 at 13:41
First time I heard this one was in a Musical Heritage Society recording of the Harvard Glee Club (all male). Though the tape has been lost (yes, it was ages ago), that sound still serves as my reference recording for this piece. Love the unison treatment of the chant as done by Chanticleer. Now I’ve got to go back and listen to the rest. Just couldn’t contain myself. one of the most beautiful choral works ever written. I’ve always liked the TTBB much better than SATB … now I know why.
8 Cap'n Whook // Dec 17, 2008 at 13:45
Chanticleer is performing at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. That’s the Medieval Sculpture Hall, where the museum’s Christmas tree and Neapolitan Baroque Crèche is on display every year (angels being the “ornaments” on the tree).
Years ago, someone gave me a David Willcocks book of Christmas music illustrated with art from the Met’s collections (the crèche being prominent), which I always enjoy every year.
9 Mo // Dec 17, 2008 at 13:49
The only thing the Harvard Glee Club recording has over this one is the “Amen” at the end. They approached it as a single continuous crescendo with no breaks. But that’s the only thing …
10 RevJATB // Dec 17, 2008 at 15:28
Mo, if you go to the Harvard Glee Club web site you can listen to this piece online:
http://www.harvardgleeclub.org/
There is an audio player in the top right corner and this piece is No. 5 in the list.
11 RevJATB // Dec 17, 2008 at 15:38
The way the Harvard Glee Club does the ending is really nice. But you can do that if you have 60 men in the group, whereas Chanticleer has 12.
12 Cap'n Whook // Dec 17, 2008 at 18:51
Tangentially apropo, I think there is a new Harvard University Hymn Book, published this or last year. Anybody seen it?
I like the Yale one (which goes by the title A New Hymnal for Colleges and Schools).
13 RevJATB // Dec 19, 2008 at 7:32
Haven’t seen the new Harvard hymnal, but I agree with you that the Yale hymnal is wonderful. (BTW it includes K. Lee Scott’s tune SHADES MOUNTAIN for “There in God’s Garden,” a.k.a. “The Tree of Life.”)
14 Laurel Massé // Dec 22, 2008 at 7:55
Perfect.
Thank you!
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