Jules Massenet: Ave Maria for soprano, double bass & piano

About the Composition

Based on the glorious Meditation from Massenet’s opera Thaïs and originally arranged for mezzo-soprano, violin, organ ad lib. and piano, Ave Maria has recently been transcribed by David Heyes with the double bass replacing the violin alongside the removal of the organ part.

Thaïs was premiered in 1894 and the arrangement with soprano was published the same year, obviously to boost printed music sales. Meditation for solo violin from Act Two was instantly popular and, never wanting to waste a good tune and with no mention of an arranger, it seems likely that Massenet created the version for mezzo-soprano, violin and piano, alongside an edition for voice and piano.

This new edition includes accompaniments for both solo and orchestral tunings.

The three-act opera Thaïs was composed in 1890, to a libretto by Louis Gallet, after Anatole France's novel, and was first produced in Paris on 16 March 1894. It is set in 4th-century Egypt and tells how the monk Athanael converts the courtesan Thaïs, who becomes a nun, but loses her soul in the process. Meditation is played between Scenes 1 and 2 of Act Two.

About the Composer

Jules Massenet (1842-1912) composed more than thirty operas alongside oratorios, cantatas, ballets, orchestral works, incidental music, piano pieces and songs. He studied at the Paris Conservatoire, won the prestigious Prix de Rome, and was subsequently appointed Professor of Composition at the conservatoire where his students included Ernest Chausson, Reynaldo Hahn and Gabriel Pierné. Massenet had a good sense of the theatre, producing many successful operas, a number of which remain in the international repertoire to the present day.