Roman Catholic Marian Music - Marian Music For The Liturgy of The Hours

Marian Music For The Liturgy of The Hours

One of the earliest medieval Marian compositions is the popular Salve Regina in Latin from a Benedictine monk at the Reichenau Island (Lake Constance), which exists in several Gregorian versions. The liturgy of the hour includes several offices to be sung. At the close of the Office, one of four Marian antiphons is sung. These songs, Alma Redemptoris Mater Ave Regina Caelorum, Regina Coeli, and Salve Regina, have been described as "among the most beautiful creations of the late Middle Ages."

Other Marian supplications exist in numerous Latin versions as well It is difficult to trace the beginning of non-Gregorian Marian liturgical music. In the year 1277 Pope Nicholas III prescribed rules for liturgy in Roman churches. Three years later, in 1280, Petrus de Cruce published his Marian anthem Ave virgo regia, Ave gloriosa O maria Maris stella. Later, composer Pérotin followed with his Alleluja, Navitatis gloriosae virginis, to be sung at the feast of the birth of Mary. Marian motets became very popular in the Middle Ages. A large collection of which is in St Paul Cathedral in London Pope John XXII 1316—34 issued the apostolic constitution Docta SS Patrum about Church music. It was the first music modern regulations for musical presentation during the liturgy

Monteverdi's Vespro della Beata Vergine contains distinctly Marian texts among its 13 movements, though the composer's intention for the work as a whole is debated. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart composed in honour of the Virgin Mary Latin masses and several shorter opera: Other known classic composers with Marian compositions mainly in Latin include Orlando di Lasso and Franz Schubert.

Vivaldi, Monteverdi, Mozart, Haydn and others are well-known composers who contributed to Marian music. Less known is the fact, that before 1802, the secularisation, many religious congregations had their own composers. A totally unknown Father Valentin Rathgeber OSB, (1682–1750) wrote 43 masses, 164 offertories 24 concerts and, 44 Marian antiphones. Missa de Beata Virgine and the Messe de Nostre Dame are examples of individual contributions. Monteverdi's Vespro della Beata Vergine has remained structurally unchanged for the past 1500 years. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart composed in honour of the Virgin Mary Latin masses and several shorter opera: Other known classic composers with Marian compositions mainly in Latin include Orlando di Lasso and Franz Schubert.