5/25/09

Ave Maria: May, the month of Mary



Another in a series of occasional Ave's in this month of May...

This video features Bobby McFerrin and a huge audience, the composition of which I've not been able to discover. The video includes a fairly lengthy intro by McFerrin but please be patient and wait for the music to begin. As McFerrin instructs, the Bach-Gounod setting of the Ave is the combination of two musical pieces. A Bach prelude is the foundation and the Gounod setting of the Marian prayer sits atop it - tenderly and delicately so.

Besides the beauty of the composition, I find this performance particularly moving for the way McFerrin pulls together the voice of a large audience with his simple and amazing vocalizing of the prelude. What sends shivers up my spine each time I hear this is less McFerrin's vocal prowess and more the song the people make and his ability to draw that from them and to support it with a simple melody that bubbles from throat and mouth.

What comes of this unrehearsed collaboration is a thing of beauty.

-ConcordPastor

5 comments:

  1. Amazing. Thanks for sharing.

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  2. Fr Austin,

    You always manage to find some of the greatest musical selections out there. Thanks.

    Take care. Thanks for all you do through this blog.

    Shawn McEnany

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  3. Wow, I'm impressed. McFarren's Bach was a feat in itself, accurate and almost impossible to breathe! But, there must have been a choir somewhere to have kept it "all together"? Great find and thanks.

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  4. I've been at his concert at the Boston Pops where he's done this with the audience, and it was really amazing and transforming to be part of the process.

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  5. I would like to know who the audience was too! They really seemed to know what they were doing.

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