Ave Verum Corpus - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Dorian Music Camp 2010
Luther College, Decorah, Iowa

Ave, verum corpus
natum de Maria Virgine,
Vere passum immolatum
in Cruce pro homine,
Cujus latus perforatum
unda* fluxit (et)* sanguine,
Esto nobis praegustatum

in mortis examine. Ave verum corpus is a short Eucharistic hymn that has been set to music by various composers. It dates from the 14th century and has been attributed to Popes Innocent III, Innocent IV and Innocent VI. During the Middle Ages it was sung at the elevation of the host during the consecration. It was also used frequently during Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament. The hymn's title means "Hail, true body", and is based on a poem deriving from a 14th-century manuscript from the Abbey of Reichenau, Lake Constance. The poem is a meditation on the belief in Jesus's Real Presence in the sacrament of the Eucharist, and ties it to the conception of the redemptive meaning of suffering in the life of all believers.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's setting of Ave verum corpus in D major was written for Anton Stoll (a friend of his and Joseph Haydn's) who was musical co-ordinator in the parish of Baden bei Wien, near Vienna. It was composed to celebrate the feast of Corpus Christi and the autograph is dated 17 June 1791. It is only forty-six bars long and is scored for choir, stringed instruments, and organ. Mozart composed this motet while in the middle of writing his opera Die Zauberflöte, and while visiting his wife Constanze, who was pregnant with their sixth child and staying in a spa near Baden. It was less than six months before Mozart's death.

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