Lauridsen's "Ave Maria"

Synopsis

Over the centuries, hundreds of composers have set the Latin prayer, “Ave Maria” – the “Hail Mary” in English – to music. The best-known music versions are by Franz Schubert and Charles Gounod, but there have been settings ranging from William Byrd to Igor Stravinsky.

On today’s date in 1997, the Los Angeles Master Chorale gave the premiere performance of a new unaccompanied choral setting by the American composer Morten Lauridsen.

Lauridsen was born in the Pacific Northwest in 1943, and worked for a time as a Forest Service lookout on an isolated tower near Mt. St. Helens before studying composition at the University of Southern California. By 1997, he proved be one of the most oft-performed choral composers of our time. His music is deeply rooted in the great choral tradition. One critic, writing of Lauridsen’s “Ave Maria,” said it “recalls the sumptuous polychoral music of Gabrieli as well as the rich textures of Brahms’s music for unaccompanied chorus.”

In a 1989 interview, Lauridsen said, “I think all of my music is deeply spiritual. I tend to be one who feels a part of a great whole on some level ... when I go off in my summers ... to [a] remote island off the coast of Washington [state], I’m able to commune with a greater sense and greater being, or whatever one might call it.”

Music Played in Today's Program

Morton Lauridsen (b. 1943) Ave Maria Los Angeles Master Chorale; Paul Salamunovich, cond. RCM ‎19705

On This Day

Births

• 1873 - Belgian composer and organist Joseph Jongen, in Liège;

• 1929 - American composer Ron Nelson, in Joliet, Illinois;

Deaths

• 1788 - German composer Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, age 74, in Hamburg;

• 1861 - German opera composer Heinrich Marschner, age 66, in Hanover;

Premieres

• 1918 - Puccini: one-act opera trilogy "Il Trittico" ("Il Tabarro," "Suor Angelico," and "Gianni Schicchi") at the Metropolitan Opera in New York;

• 1924 - Respighi: tone poem, "The Pines of Rome," in Rome, at the Augusteo, Bernardo Molinari conducting;

• 1925 - Berg: opera, "Wozzeck," in Berlin, at the Staatsoper, with Erich Kleiber conducting;

• 1936 - Barber: String Quartet, Op. 11, at the Villa Aurelia in Rome (Italy), by the Pro Arte Quartet;

• 1969 - Ligeti: String Quartet No. 2, in Baden-Baden, Germany, by the LaSalle Quartet;

• 1975 - Ruth Crawford Seeger: Suite for Piano and Woodwind Quintet, in Cambridge, Mass.;

• 1983 - George Perle: Serenade No. 3 for Piano and Chamber Orchestra,in New York City, by Richard Goode and the Music Today Ensemble conducted by Gerard Schwarz;

• 1997 - Morten Lauridsen: “Ave Maria” for a cappella chorus, by the Los Angeles Master Chorale, Paul Salamunovich conducting;

• 1997 - Joan Tower: "Rain Waves," at the Frick Museum in New York, by the Verdehr Trio;