Ave verum Corpus in D Major

For all the magnificence of the Mass in C minor and Requiem that bookend his Vienna decade, it is striking to note that Mozart’s only completed piece of sacred music from this period is the tiny hymn “Ave verum Corpus”. In June 1791 Mozart’s pregnant wife, Constanze, was taking the water cure in the resort of Baden, south of Vienna, where the composer befriended the local choirmaster Anton Stoll. It was for Stoll and his singers that Mozart composed this small but exquisite Eucharistic chant for the feast of Corpus Christi. A meditation on the body of the crucified Christ, “Ave verum” is just 46 bars long, scored simply for choir, strings and organ, and marked to be sung quietly throughout. Only at the closing line, “Be for us a foretaste of the heavenly banquet in the trial of death”, is there a moment of churning counterpoint and the work’s subtle climax (on “mortis”—death) before its serene close.