154: Ave Verum Corpus

 The feast of Coprus Christi began in the late 1100s or early 1200s thanks to the devotion of a young Belgian girl; by the early 1300s, Rome had caught wind of it and had made it a universal feast observed by the whole Church on the Thursday after Trinity Sunday (which itself is exactly 1 week after Pentecost, which makes Trinity 56 days after Easter, and Corpus Christi 60.

Today’s musical selections is one of the last things Mozart wrote, in the summer of 1791—he would die in early December. His Kochel catalog numbers are essentially chronological, and this is 618; the Requiem, which he could not finish (so it was completed by one of his closest students) is 626. 

Mozart was a lifelong Catholic (though he did get involved with Freemasonry, which landed him in hot water—a story for another time), so it’s no surprise at all that he would have written something so rich in Eucharistic theology as the “Ave Verum Coprus” (“Hail [or “behold”] the true body”) for this feast. We know it was for this feast, and not for the related celebration of the Institution of the Eucharist on Holy Thursday because of the dates involved. The manuscript is dated 6/17/1791, which was a Friday, and Corpus Christ was the following Thursday the 23rd. (Easter’s date has to do with the first full moon in spring, so it must be between March 22 and April 25; Holy Thursday is simply the Thursday just before.)

In contrast with the Requiem of about the same period, the Ave Verum Corpus is orders of magnitude simpler. But “simple” Mozart is dangerous—you’re tremendously exposed, and you have nothing and nowhere to hide. Mozart is often thought of as the paragon of the Classical style (rightly so), but some of his last works, this one included, reveal a deeply Romantic side that I so wish we could have explored more deeply, and we surely would have if he hadn’t died barely six months after he finished this motet. Here, he blends old styles and new—Baroque motets and part-writing with Romantic harmony—in a way that, of course, is absolutely perfect because he’s Mozart and incapable of producing anything less. 


On this feast of Corpus Christi, here are some recordings I recommend you listen to:

1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OclZWfE_uvs&list=RDOclZWfE_uvs&start_radio=1

2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NK8-Zg-8JYM&list=RDNK8-Zg-8JYM&start_radio=1

3. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pscsAvGjQI0&list=RDpscsAvGjQI0&start_radio=1

4. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9T52n31KeQM&list=RD9T52n31KeQM&start_radio=1

5. This is a Liszt transcription for piano: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQd2EDhYxO0&list=RDqQd2EDhYxO0&start_radio=1

6. This is a Tchaikovsky transcription for full orchestra: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_SMHuN_99LU&list=RD_SMHuN_99LU&start_radio=1



 


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