Ave Verum – Learning Tracks

Mozart’s setting of the words for the Eucharistic Hymn was written in June 1791 only 6 months before he died. One of the most popular motets ever written, it is far simpler than the style of the Requiem, also written the same year. The original was written for strings and organ accompaniment but this piano reduction works fine. Try and follow the breathing patterns we have suggested in the demo, especially at bar 23 where it seems right to breathe, but the tenors are still moving and it works much better, and makes more sense lyrically, if you phrase that right over.

The dynamic is generally quiet, with some gentle phrasing. A little more opening out works at words “in mortis” before finally dying away.

The translation from the Latin  is as follows:

Hail true body
born of the Virgin Mary
having truly suffered, sacrificed
on the cross for mankind,

from whose pierced side
flowed both water and blood:
Be for us a foretaste (of the Heavenly banquet)
in the trial of death.

  Click for Sheet Music

  Click for Backing Track