Franz Peter Schubert was an Austrian composer of the late Classical and early Romantic eras. Despite his short life, Schubert left behind a vast oeuvre, including more than 600 secular vocal works, seven complete symphonies, sacred music, operas, incidental music, and a large body of piano and chamber music. His major works include the art songs "Erlkönig", "Gretchen am Spinnrade", and "Ave Maria"; the Trout Quintet; the Symphony No. 8 in B minor (Unfinished); the Symphony No. 9 in C major (Great); the String Quartet No. 14 in D minor ; the String Quintet in C major; the Impromptus for solo piano; the last three piano sonatas; the Fantasia in F minor for piano four hands; the opera Fierrabras; the incidental music to the play Rosamunde; and the song cycles Die schöne Müllerin, Winterreise and Schwanengesang.
The Hail Mary or Angelical salutation is a traditional Catholic prayer addressing Mary, the mother of Jesus. The prayer is based on two biblical passages featured in the Gospel of Luke: the Angel Gabriel's visit to Mary and Mary's subsequent visit to Elisabeth, the mother of John the Baptist. It is also called the Angelical Salutation, as the prayer is based on the Archangel Gabriel's words to Mary. The Hail Mary is a prayer of praise for and of petition to Mary, regarded as the Theotokos. Since the 16th century, the version of the prayer used in the Catholic Church closes with an appeal for her intercession. The prayer takes different forms in various traditions and has often been set to music.
"Hail to the Chief" is a piece originally about a boat in Scotland, but today it is best known as the personal anthem of the president of the United States, adapted by James Sanderson from an original Scottish Gaelic melody.
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage: A Romaunt is a long narrative poem in four parts written by Lord Byron. The poem was published between 1812 and 1818. Dedicated to "Ianthe", it describes the travels and reflections of a young man disillusioned with a life of pleasure and revelry and looking for distraction in foreign lands. In a wider sense, it is an expression of the melancholy and disillusionment felt by a generation weary of the wars of the post-Revolutionary and Napoleonic eras. The title comes from the term childe, a medieval title for a young man who was a candidate for knighthood.
Marian hymns are Christian songs focused on Mary, mother of Jesus. They are used in both devotional and liturgical services, particularly by the Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Anglican, and Lutheran churches. They are often used in the month of May devotions. Some have also been adopted as Christmas hymns. Marian hymns are not popular among some Protestants, as they see Marian veneration as idolatry. However, the practice is very common among Christians of Catholic traditions, and a key component of the Eastern Orthodox liturgy. There are many more hymns to Mary within the Eastern Orthodox yearly cycle of liturgy than in Roman Catholic liturgy.
The Ave Maria is a traditional Christian prayer addressing Mary, mother of Jesus.
"Ave Regina caelorum" is one of the Marian antiphons said or sung in the Liturgy of the Hours at the close of compline. In the Roman Breviary as revised by Pope Pius V in 1569 it was assigned for this use from compline of 2 February until compline of Wednesday of Holy Week. Since the revision of the Liturgy of the Hours in 1969, the only Marian antiphon for whose use a fixed period is laid down is the Easter season antiphon Regina caeli.
The Lady of the Lake is the name of several related characters in the Arthurian legend.
The Quattro pezzi sacri are choral works by Giuseppe Verdi. Written separately during the last decades of the composer's life and with different origins and purposes, they were nevertheless published together in 1898 by Casa Ricordi. They are often performed as a cycle, not in chronological sequence of their composition, but in the sequence used in the Ricordi publication:
"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 Bach's Prelude No. 1 in C major, BWV 846, from Book I of his The Well-Tempered Clavier, 1722. The 1853 publication has French text, but it is the 1859 version with the Latin Ave Maria which became popular.
The Lady of the Lake is a narrative poem by Sir Walter Scott, first published in 1810. Set in the Trossachs region of Scotland, it is composed of six cantos, each of which concerns the action of a single day. There are voluminous antiquarian notes. The poem has three main plots: the contest among three men, Roderick Dhu, James Fitz-James, and Malcolm Graeme, to win the love of Ellen Douglas; the feud and reconciliation of King James V of Scotland and James Douglas; and a war between the Lowland Scots and the Highland clans. The poem was tremendously influential in the nineteenth century, and inspired the Highland Revival.
O Maria, Deu maire is an Old Occitan song, a hymn to the Virgin Mary, unique in being both the only song from the Saint Martial school that is entirely in the vernacular and the only medieval Occitan song with extant musical notation for all its (twelve) stanzas. It dates to the 1090s and is preserved in MS f. lat. 1139 of the Bibliothèque nationale de France. It has been translated into English.
The Lady of the Lake is a 1928 British sound romance film directed by James A. FitzPatrick and starring Percy Marmont, Benita Hume and Lawson Butt. While the film has no audible dialog, it features a synchronized musical score with singing and sound effects. The film is based on the 1810 poem The Lady of the Lake by Walter Scott.
Johann Sebastian Bach composed the church cantata Herr Christ, der einge Gottessohn, BWV 96, in Leipzig for the 18th Sunday after Trinity and first performed it on 8 October 1724. The chorale cantata, part of Bach's second annual cycle, is based on the hymn in five stanzas "Herr Christ, der einig Gotts Sohn" by Elisabeth Cruciger, published in Eyn geystlich Gesangk Buchleyn in 1524.
Franz Schubert's best known song cycles, like Die schöne Müllerin and Winterreise are based on separate poems with a common theme and narrative. Other song cycles are based on consecutive excerpts of the same literary work: Schubert's "Ave Maria" is part of such a song cycle based on excerpts of the same poem, in this case by Walter Scott.
Mignon, a character appearing in Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's writings such as Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship and Wilhelm Meister's Journeyman Years, is the subject of several Lieder by Franz Schubert.
"Herr Jesu Christ, du höchstes Gut" is the beginning of two Lutheran hymns. One is a penitential hymn, written in 1588 by Bartholomäus Ringwaldt, who possibly also created the melody. The other is an anonymous communion hymn, probably based on the former, which appeared first in 1713. Johann Sebastian Bach's used the penitential hymn several times, including the chorale cantata Herr Jesu Christ, du höchstes Gut, BWV 113, based on the hymn.
"Gesang der Geister über den Wassern" is a 1779 poem by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832). It may be best known in the English-speaking world through a musical setting of 1820–21 by Franz Schubert (1797–1828) as a part song for men's voices and low strings (D.714).
"Liebster Gott, wann werd ich sterben" is a Lutheran hymn which Caspar Neumann, an evangelical theologian from Breslau, wrote around 1690. The topic of the hymn, which has five stanzas of eight lines, is a reflection on death. An elaborate analysis of the hymn's content was published in 1749. A few text variants of the hymn originated in the 18th century. Neumann's text is usually sung to the hymn tune of "Freu dich sehr o meine Seele".
