Ave Maria, D. 839

Schubert composed this song in 1825 at Steyr and Gmunden as the sixth of seven settings from Walter Scott's The Lady of the Lake, using Adam Storck's German translation. In the poem Ellen Douglas, hiding with her exiled father, prays to the Virgin; the words Ave Maria that open and close her prayer are the only Latin in the piece. Schubert published the set as op. 52 in 1826 and told his father he was surprised by the devotional effect it produced on listeners. The Latin Mass text now usually sung to it was fitted later by other hands.