Ave Maria is a popular and much-recorded setting of the Latin prayer Ave Maria, originally published in 1853 as Méditation sur le Premier Prélude de Piano de S. Bach. The piece consists of a melody by the French Romantic composer Charles Gounod that he superimposed over an only very slightly changed version of the Prelude No. 1 in C major, BWV 846, from Book I of J. S. Bach's The Well-Tempered Clavier, published in 1722.

Gounod improvised the melody, and his future father-in-law Pierre-Joseph-Guillaume Zimmermann transcribed the improvisation and in 1853 made an arrangement for violin (or cello) with piano and harmonium.

Alongside Schubert's Ave Maria, the Bach/Gounod Ave Maria has become a fixture at funerals, wedding Masses. There are many different instrumental arrangements including for violin and guitar, string quartet, piano solo, cello, and even trombones.

 

https://imslp.org/wiki/Ave_Maria_(Gounod%2C_Charles)

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