Ave Maria is a setting of the traditional Marian prayer, for a cappella SATB choir. I had the privilege of workshopping it with Morten Lauridsen at a choral seminar in Rostrevor, Northern Ireland in 2016. The setting is in E-flat, with minor excursions along the way, and is built on two intertwining themes, one a rising scale, the other falling, that weave through the work and combine at its close.

The Sancta Maria section is where the harmony grows adventurous. Mater Dei (“mother of God”) rises chromatically to an unprepared A-minor chord, fortissimo and accented, on the word ora (“pray”) while pro nobis (“for us”) falls back to A-flat. A subito piano echo repeats the plea in A major before settling again to A-flat. At the workshop in Rostrevor, Lauridsen dubbed this passage my “Bruckner moment.”

Another peak lifts peccatoribus to F major by way of a secondary dominant, before the harmony settles at nostrae (“our” death) to C minor, the relative minor of the home key. The rising and falling themes return to carry it there. The six-part Amen combines the two themes in a brief canon beneath a floating soprano descant, as the work comes to rest on a widely spaced E-flat major chord. The audio sample covers the first two pages of the score.

Here are the Latin and English texts: