Music for the Lenten Season: Mozart's Ave Verum Corpus

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's setting of Ave verum corpus (K. 618) was written for Anton Stoll (a friend of his and Haydn's) who was musical coordinator in the parish of Baden, near Vienna. It was composed to celebrate the feast of Corpus Christi and the autograph is dated 17 June 1791, less than six months before his death. It is only forty-six bars long and is scored for choir, stringed instruments, and organ. Mozart's manuscript contains minimal directions, with only a single sotto voce at the beginning. Mozart composed this motet while in the middle of writing his opera Die Zauberflöte, and while visiting his wife Constanze, who was staying at the spa near Baden.