Treseder, Gareth - Ave Maria

Ave Maria received its premiere courtesy of Jonathan Rennert’s Choir of St Michael’s Cornhill, London, on Sunday 16th October 2011. It has been my great privilege to sing with them for many years, and it was wonderful to have the opportunity to hear this sung so beautifully.

From niente, the work opens on an A, which remains constant and is shared by the sopranos and altos throughout the setting. This provides ethereality and simplicity to the harmonic framework, as though the choir is singing with an angelic host, offering a continual prayer of thanksgiving to the Virgin Mother. After the apex of the piece, in which the choir asks Maria to ‘pray for us sinners’ (‘ora pro nobis peccatoribus’), the concluding ‘Amen’ adds a cyclical element to the composition by reiterating the opening musical statement before returning to niente.