A-ve Ma-ri-a! A-ve Ma-ri-a!
Gra-ti-a ple-na,
Do-mi-nus te-cum, Do-mi-nus te-cum,
be-ne-di-cta tu in mu-lie-ri-bus,
et be-ne-di-ctus
et be-ne-di-ctus fru-ctus ven-tris tu-i,
Ie-su. Ie-su. Ie-su. Ie-su.
San-cta Ma-ri-a,
San-cta Ma-ri-a, Ma-ter De-i,
o-ra pro no-bis
o-ra pro no-bis pec-ca-to-ri-bus,
nunc et in ho-ra mor-tis nos-trae,
A-men. A-men. A-men.
Recordings:
play/stop MIDI:
play/stop MP3 sample:
Posted on YouTube:
Uploaded by haroldstover on Jul 2, 2011
Renaissance Voices, Harold Stover, conducting
Several published scores, recordings and a number of files circulating on the
Internet attribute this song to Nicolas Gombert. PLEASE take note of the following email
messages that question the authenticity of this attribution to Nicolas Gombert.
My thanks to Prof. Dr. Urquhart and Dr. Rice for their comments.
From: Peter Urquhart
Sent: Tuesday, January 25, 2005 7:53 PM To: Geert Cuypers
Subject: RE: Ave Maria
Dear Mr. Cuypers,
I've just looked at your site, and it looks promising, and a lot of work!
I looked in particular at the Gombert setting, since you had mentioned
that you had a score. I was struck to find that the piece you have, from
the cpdl.org site, was not a piece by Gombert that I had ever seen before.
Furthermore, it really did not look like Gombert's style to my eye, and I
actually do know his style quite well. I checked New Grove Dictionary and
confirmed that there is no 6-voice Ave Maria by this composer, but only
the 5v version that I allude to in my website. In fact, the more I look at
the cpdl.org Ave Maria, the closer I am to saying that it is not by any
Renaissance composer, at least by a Franco-fleming of this period.
It is very likely a forgery, if I might use that term; a piece that
someone wrote, or reconstructed, or borrowed from some other time period;
they then placed Gombert's name on it to give it a push into the world of
the internet. It is one of the frustrations of this medium that it takes
very little to send out false information, and have everyone accept it and
pass it on to the next site. To actually determine the source of this
piece seems to be in no one's interest, so no one checks.
However, I think this does Gombert's name quite a disservice, and I
hope you will start the process of inauthenticating this piece. .../... I
have already written to the cpdl.org to ask for the source of this score
in their database, and to tell them of my opinion. We'll see if they have
any response.-
Yours,
Peter Urquhart
Music Dept. - UNH
Durham, NH 03824
603-862-3257
My follow-up on this
message: This song is attributed to Nicholas Gombert
in several locations on the Internet, including files at
www.cpdl.org, as well as in the
Werner
Icking Music Archive. The links below are all for the same music.
After Prof. Urquhart's email, I attempted to verify
authenticity by writing to the Web Site owners who posted this (identical)
music:
Claudio Macchi submitted almost 400 scores to
cpdl.org, he states he made this one several years ago and does not
remember where this specific score was obtained. I have requested him to
be so kind to verify his sources. He stated he doesn't have them
anymore.
J.-C.Templeur sequenced from the PDF file at cpdl.org
by Claudio Macchi.
Guido Gonzato sequenced from the same CPDL file by
Claudio Macchi.
Piet Mennen: stated he obtained the score from his
choir leader, and emailed me a copy of the page. It appears to be a page
from a German edition music book. (see below) I have requested Mr.
Mennen if it would be possible to trace this source further. So far, I
have not received a follow-up. [comment added 05/28/09: I found a
notice on the choir website that Piet Mennen passed away February 2006.]
Prof. Urquhart comments that the style of this 2nd song
is inconsistent with the composition style of the time.
I am quite willing to accept that statement from someone who certainly
knows A LOT more about music than I do.
However, I am also obligated to report that there are still 2 independent
sources for this attribution, one from a verifiable printed
publication provided by Piet Mennen. From this it appears that the mis-attribution
happened in the not so very recent past, and that music publishing
companies may have perpetuated this error since.
Further comments are invited.
This is the score that Piet Mennen sent me in 2005.
This message
received Sept. 03, 2007. Dear Mr. Cuypers,
I’ve just read your page on the Ave Maria setting in 6 parts that is
circulating on the internet with an attribution to Nicolas Gombert. Prof.
Urquhart is quite right to state that this piece cannot be by Gombert, nor
any other sixteenth-century composer – from the style it clearly must have
been written in the nineteenth or twentieth centuries. There is only one
piece by Gombert that is even slightly like it in style: a 4-part setting
of Virgo Sancta Katherina, first published in 1534. However, the latter
piece observes all the rules of sixteenth-century counterpoint, whereas
the internet piece can only have been written by someone who learnt music
after the ‘common-practice’ era.
Prof. Urquhart,
incidentally, is a leading scholar in this field. I am not, but I did
write my doctoral dissertation (Oxford University, 2004) on Gombert’s
5-part motets, so I’m pretty familiar with his style. Since your page is
about Ave Maria settings, you might be interested to know that I’ve
recently made a CD which includes Gombert’s genuine 5-part setting of this
text. The CD is released today on the Hyperion label (CDA 67614).
Best wishes,
Stephen Rice
Dr S J Rice
Wolfson College, Oxford/University of Southampton
Dear Dr. Rice,
Thank you for your comments on my website. It is always nice to see that
scholars do have some use for my effort. :-)
I am personally not in a position to say yay or nay on this issue of the (mis-)attribution
to Gombert. I can only report what I have found on the internet, and I
shall faithfully report your comments as well. I have posted your email
under prof. Urquhart's comments and it will appear there next time I
upload the web changes.
In acceptance of your comments, I have reinforced the likelihood of mis-attribution
from possibly to probably. I have also renamed the MIDI and NWC files like
the corresponding webpage to "ignotus" to indicate my acceptance of
your comments and to avoid perpetuating the mis-attribution. Of course, I
cannot do anything about the postings at cpdl.org and the other sites.
Sincerely,
Geert Cuypers
Update July 2009: These 2 CDs (Ave
Sol, "Ave Maria Vol.1" + Irina Arkhipova, "Ave Maria") both have this same
song attributed to Gombert. The AveSol CD dates from 1986. As far as I
have been able to verify, the scores were posted on the Internet starting
about 2000. This mis-attribution
apparently dates back further than that.
Please spread the word!
Update December 2009: I have finally found a printed score from a major
publisher: Schott's Chorverlag, distributed by Hal Leonards in the
USA.
This is a 1997 reprint. No source is mentioned.
The publisher has been contacted
info@schott-music.com 2010-06-19
for comments.
To date they have not bothered to respond.
Do you see a public domain score you
like, but you cannot download it?
Other questions or comments about this web site?
E-mail me:
infoavemariasongs.org
Thank you for visiting Geert's Ave Maria pages. My guestbook is always
only one page away.
Please do not use my guestbook for spamming, flaming or commercials for
other websites. Such entries will be deleted.
avemariasongs.org
