Ave verum corpus

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Ave verum corpus is a short Eucharistic hymn dating from the 14th century and attributed to Pope Innocent VI (d. 1362), which has been set to music by various composers. 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 Catholic belief in Jesus's Real Presence in the sacrament of the Eucharist, and ties it to Catholic ideas on the redemptive meaning of suffering in the life of all believers.

1 Text
2 Mozart's Ave verum corpus
3 Other settings
4 External links

[edit] Text

The text is in Latin, and reads:

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.

A translation into English is:

Hail, true body,

Born of the Virgin Mary,

Truly suffered, sacrificed

On the Cross for mankind,

Whose pierced side

Flowed with water and blood,

Be for us a foretaste

In the trial of death.

[edit] Mozart's Ave verum corpus

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's setting of Ave verum corpus (K 618) was written for Anton Stoll (a friend of his and Haydn's) who was musical co-ordinator in the parish of Baden, 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's manuscript itself contains minimal directions, with only a single sotto voce at the beginning.

Mozart composed this motet while in the middle of writing his opera Die Zauberflote, 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.

[edit] Other settings

There are many other settings of the poem, of which probably the best known are those by William Byrd, Sir Edward Elgar, and Colin Mawby. The text is even used in an opera, Poulenc's Dialogues of the Carmelites. Mozart's version, with instruments only, was adapted by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky as one of the sections of his Mozartiana, a tribute to Mozart. The Vienna Boys' Choir (Wiener Sangerknaben) made some notable recordings of Mozart's Ave Verum Corpus in the 20th century.

A recent version of this piece was recorded by the girl choristers that make up the group "All Angels"; the words set to the music from the ITV series Brideshead Revisited by Geoffrey Burgon.