# Alessandro Moreschi Ave Maria



## JSBach85

*Alessandro Moreschi* (11 November 1858 - 21 April 1922)

Alessandro Moreschi was a castrato singer of the late 19th century and the only castrato to make solo recordings. When Moreschi joined the Sistine choir, there were still six other castrato members, but none of them was capable of sustaining this work's taxing soprano tessitura. In the spring of 1902, in the Vatican, Moreschi made the first of his recordings for the Gramophone & Typewriter Company of London. He made additional recordings in 1904: there are seventeen tracks in all. Alessandro was a member of the Sistine choir until Easter 1913.

One of the surviving recordings of Alessandro Moreschi is the Ave Maria, recorded in Sistine Chapel, 1902






I would like to know who composed this Ave Maria. I can recognize Prelude and Fugue BWV 846 from Bach's Well-tempered Clavier in the piano section, but I am not familiar with the sacred music of this period.


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## Rogerx

Did you try Schubert?


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## JSBach85

Rogerx said:


> Did you try Schubert?


No, I think it's not Schubert. I found that this Ave Maria was originally published in 1853. The piece consists of a melody by the French Romantic composer Charles Gounod that he superimposed over a version of the Prelude No. 1 in C major, BWV 846, from Book I of J.S. Bach's The Well-Tempered Clavier, written 137 years earlier. Is known as Bach/Gounod Ave Maria.


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