Overview
Introduction
"Ave Maria" is a much-recorded aria, composed by Vladimir Vavilov around 1970. Vavilov himself published and recorded it in 1970 on the Melodiya label with the ascription "Anonymous". It is believed that organist Mark Shakhin, one of the performers on the "Melodiya" LP, first ascribed the work to Giulio Caccini after Vavilov's death, and gave the "newly-discovered scores" to other musicians. The organist Oleg Yanchenko then made an arrangement of the aria for a recording by Irina Arkhipova in 1987, after which the piece came to be famous worldwide. It bears a resemblance to Jerome Kern's 1939 "All the Things You Are".
Caccini was a sixteenth-century composer, based in Florence, and a gifted singer in his own right. To answer the second question, though, is to approach something of a minefield.
No one really knows who wrote this Ave Maria – mainly because the setting didn’t come to light until the twentieth century. Although its presence on any classical crossover singer’s album is now almost guaranteed, the piece was unknown before the 1970s. One plausible reason as to why this might be is that this Ave Maria arguably wasn’t composed until then. Many argue that its creator was, in fact, one Vladimir Vavilov, a relatively unknown Russian guitarist and composer, who recorded it in 1972 and declared it to be an anonymous song. The attribution to Caccini was then supposedly made at a later date by a musician who performed with Vavilov.
Whatever the truth, it’s certain that this simple melody is beloved by many. The Lithuanian soprano Inessa Galante was the singer who captivated our hearts with her performance of it in the 1990s, and it remains a firm favourite today.
Recommended Recording
Inessa Galante (soprano); London Musici; Mark Stephenson (conductor). Campion: RRCD 1345.
