Ave Maria is a popular and much-recorded setting of the Latin text Ave Maria, originally published in 1853 as Méditation sur le Premier Prélude de Piano de J.S. Bach. The piece consists of a melody by Charles Gounod especially designed to be superimposed over the Prelude no. 1 in C major, BWV 846, written some 137 years earlier by Johann Sebastian Bach. Alongside Schubert's Ave Maria, it has become a fixture at wedding masses and funerals. There are many different instrumental arrangements including for violin and guitar, string quartet, piano solo, cello, and even trombones.
