Why is the same "Ave Maria" (they all sound the same to me), attributed to different composers:?

Question

Schubert, Bach, Mozart, etc?

Sorry, my mistake! Of course they are all different, but some dummies have attributed Schubert's composition to other composers in their Limewire share folder, and I've been downloading them to see the difference, being mostly familiar with Schubert's version, and there was none. They were all Schubert.

Answer 1

Way back a long time ago, most western composers were writing for the Catholic church. It was commonly believed that the purpose of music was to glorify God and arouse a spiritual passion in the soul, so composers focused their compositions around religious themes.

You probably know about the Catholic "Hail Mary" prayer--"Hail Mary, the Lord is with thee, blessed are thou among women, blessed is the fruit of thy womb Jesus, and so on."

"Ave Maria" is Latin for "Hail Mary," and, the prayer being a cornerstone of the Catholic faith, it is only logical that over the course of a number of centuries, many different composers would try to capture the feeling of the prayer in a composition.

Most great composers up to 1800 or so did a lot of church music, and most did an Ave Maria--not to mention complete compositions intended to be performed during Catholic masses. The most famous setting of the Ave Maria prayer is Charles Gounoud's, which builds upon Bach's Prelude in C Major (from the Well Tempered Clavier). Mozart, Verdi, Stravinsky, Rossini, Palestrina, du Prez. Lots of Ave Marias out there, especially from Renaissance and Baroque composers.

The Schubert piece mentioned by another poster here is not actually a setting of the Ave Maria prayer like most of the others are, it merely starts out with the words "Ave Maria."

Lots of people seem to make snarky responses without actually knowing anything worth contributing!

Answer 2

The Ave Maria must sound the same to you because you're only listening to the words. Yes, all Ave Marias are settings of the same prayer: the familiar Hail Mary (but in Latin). However, the tune of each is drastically different.

And to correct stthomasonsax's answer, the "Schubert Ave Maria" is, in fact, a complete setting of the Latin Ave Maria prayer. However, Schubert never wrote it that way. He wrote a piece of music that was a German setting of an English poem which happened to have opened with the phrase "Ave Maria", but which did not make any other references to the prayer. Adaptation of the prayer text to Schubert's tune was someone else's responsibility (or fault depending on your point of view). However, that is the version that has popularity today.

Answer 3

The simple answer to your question, as further explained, is that, sadly the world is full of dummies who don't know what they are talking about.

And, incidentally, if you want to hear a great modern setting of the Ave Maria try and hear that by the American Morton Lauridsen (who has just received the Pulitzer Prize for Music)

Answer 4

And don't forget my favourite ; the Ave Maria by Caccini.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fjZ8fBGtMaI

The words are the same but the music is different.

Answer 5

Schubert composed Ave Maria. I don't know where you ever would've seen composition credit assigned to Bach or Mozart.

Answer 6

Because if you were not tone deaf, you could easily HEAR the difference between the songs.

Answer 7

They're not the same at all. If they sound the same to you, take out the earplugs.