AVE MARIA

Ave Maria is a song from Mylène Farmer’s seventh studio album, Point de Suture (2008). Last title of the album in hidden track. It starts and ends like a heartbeat: is it a beginning of a new life in the womb and perhaps the very last heart beat?

And then its just an angelic voice. It’s so pure, so innocent, so full of beauty and sensitivity. Pray, cry, feel, cleanse, look up to the sky…

Only our dearest Mylene can put Sextonik and Ave Maria on the same album. I love her for that even more. Since the track was hidden (silent), so will I with regards to any more of my comments. It’s a perfection beyond any words.

For those curious minds of yours, here are the facts and facts only.

With Ave Maria, this is the second time that Mylène offers a track title hidden on an album (after Nobody knows on the album Avant que ombre … in 2005). Unlike the previous hidden title, it is absent from the digital version (download & streaming) of the album as well as from certain foreign physical media.

During an interview with the magazine “Têtu” before the release of the album Point de Suture, to the question: “Let us imagine that a person does not know your work at all, how would you tell him to start to know you? a little? “, Mylène replied mischievously and indirectly the Ave Maria: “By the title hidden in this new album, but shhh … it’s a secret!”

Did you know:

The piece was composed by Austrian Frantz Schubert in 1825 under the name Ellens dritter Gesang.

Created as a setting of a song (verse XXIX from Canto Three) from Walter Scott’s popular narrative poem The Lady of the Lake, in a German translation by Adam Storck and thus forms part of Schubert’s Liederzyklus vom Fräulein vom See.

In Scott’s poem the character Ellen Douglas, the Lady of the Lake (Loch Katrine in the Scottish Highlands), has gone with her exiled father to stay in the Goblin’s cave as he has declined to join their previous host, Roderick Dhu, in rebellion against King James.

Roderick Dhu, the chieftain of Clan Alpine, sets off up the mountain with his warriors, but lingers and hears the distant sound of the harpist Allan-bane, accompanying Ellen who sings a prayer addressed to the Virgin Mary, calling upon her for help. Roderick Dhu pauses, then goes on to battle.

Schubert’s arrangement first has been performed at the castle of Countess Sophie Weissenwolff in the little Austrian town of Steyregg and dedicated to her, which led to her becoming known as “the lady of the lake” herself.

The opening words and refrain of Ellen’s song, namely “Ave Maria” (Latin for “Hail Mary”), may have led to the idea of adapting Schubert’s melody as a setting for the full text of the traditional Roman Catholic prayer “Ave Maria”. The Latin version of the “Ave Maria” is now so frequently used with Schubert’s melody that it has led to the misconception that he originally wrote the melody as a setting for the “Ave Maria”.

Here is a classic version performed beautifully in my opinion:

Mylene’s version was arranged by Laurent Boutonnat himself and it almost reminds me of the “Au bout de la nuit” the way Boutonnat arranged it. He accentuated the melody perfectly.

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Latin Catholic prayer version with translation

Ave Maria, gratia plena,
Maria, gratia plena,
Maria, gratia plena,
Ave, Ave, Dominus,
Dominus tecum.
Benedicta tu in mulieribus, et benedictus,
Et benedictus fructus ventris (tui),
Ventris tui, Jesus.
Ave Maria!

Hail Mary, full of grace,
Mary, full of grace,
Mary, full of grace,
Hail, Hail, the Lord
The Lord is with thee.
Blessed art thou among women, and blessed,
Blessed is the fruit of thy womb,
Thy womb, Jesus.
Hail Mary!