AVE MARIA, RENEE FLEMING

The first time I paid attention to this melody was at the City Hall ceremony for slain liberal mayor George Moscone. The players were from the SF Symphony, and I think they were at a loss what to play. The murders were just a few days earlier and there was still a sense of shock.

The melody is too romantic and swingy to be religious in any ascetic sense. It almost treats the Virgin Mary as kind of a babe. But I’m not going down that road.

Per our previous discussion of boy sopranos, I can’t imagine why anyone would prefer a boy soprano, for this song, over Renee Fleming.

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