Sunday, October 30, 2011

Ave Maria-Josquin des Prez

This was a very beautiful, peaceful song.  The recording that I listened to had a female voice and several male voices. I found the combination of voices to fit really well. The style of this piece was a sacred motet.  The song was very canonical with the imitation initially occurring at the octave.  The bass imitation occurred down a fifth.

The song had a special feature where there were several duets occurring in the song with two voices at a time.  I really enjoyed this feature and thought it added a lot of interest to the piece.

This song was very syllabic with only a few melismas.

The English translation is below.  I noticed it is the typical "Hail Mary" prayer, still prayed by Roman Catholics today.

Ave Maria

Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee;
blessed art thou among women,
and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus [Christ].
Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners,
now and at the hour of our death. Amen

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