- Text: Marian
- SSA
- Oxford University Press
- Commissioned by Janet and Douglas Mackay in memory of their parents for the City of Canterbury Chamber Choir
- First performance 4 April 2004 | City of Canterbury Chamber Choir/George Vass | St Mary of Charity, Faversham, Kent
The Ave Maria, written for upper voices, is one of a triptych of Marian motets, the others being Ave Regina and Regina Caeli. It is the most intimate in expression of the three and features ‘a pair of laddering motifs, the one rising in close harmony quavers, the other cascading down in chains of suspensions.’
Ave Maria
- Ave Maria, gratia plena, Dominus tecum;
- benedicta tu in mulieribus,
- et benedictus fructus ventris tui, Jesus.
- Sancta Maria, Mater Dei,
- ora pro nobis peccatoribus,
- nunc et in hora mortis nostrae.
- Amen.
- Hail, Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with you.
- Blessed are you among women,
- And blessed is the fruit of your womb, Jesus.
- Holy Mary, Mother of God,
- Pray for us sinners now and in the hour of death.
- Amen.