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Ave Maria - Jacob Handl
Victoria's most famous motet is almost undoubtedly not by Victoria. This situation of course is analogous to the one I described many months ago in relation to a piece long-attributed to Orlande de Lassus:
The four-part 'Mon coeur se recommande à vous'.

I sang both of these pieces in high school (by some quirk of the available personnel I got into Las Choralistas, the select ensemble at El Cerrito High School) under their original attributions. As per my earlier message, the Lassus piece was actually written some two centuries after his death. (Apparently he continued his composing even as he was decomposing.)

My thanks to our own Dana Alexander for introducing me to the attribution situation with the (not-)Victoria. Dana's doing this beautiful piece with her Chamber Singers at a festival, and had a question about the authenticity of a certain G-sharp (F-sharp in the original key). She mentioned that the piece is now generally attributed to the Slovenian Jacob Handl (1550-1591), also known as Jacobus Gallus (Jake the Rooster).

I got interested, and, while seated upon the same incredibly uncomfortable sofa I am even now occupying (we're up at Truckee with friends), I did a little research. If you're interested, here's a link to a page about the attribution.

At least Handl was a contemporary of Victoria (as opposed to the situation with the Lassus chanson mentioned above), so the misattribution is more understandable. And there is no question that, whoever wrote it, the 'Ave Maria' is a lovely piece. It is (pretty loosely) based upon the eponymous chant, embedded into an ascetic four-part contrapuntal texture, with various duo and trio passages, bouts of homophony, a nice triple-time section, and an extended closing 'Amen'.

Here's a link to the Tallis Scholars' recording of the piece (still attributed to Victoria); a score is attached hereto (ignore the peculiar symbols over the notes, which refer to singing the piece in just intonation); and here's a translation of the text:

Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee.
Blessed art thou among women,
and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.
Holy Mary, Mother of God,
pray for us sinners,
now and at the hour of our death. Amen.

Happy Easter!
Click here to download score
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