This sublime aria is sung in the fourth act of Giuseppe Verdi's opera, 'Otello' , by Desdemona. Stravinsky composed all three works in Slavic text, then fifteen years later, after moving to the United States, he republished the works with Latin texts. It wasn't until he returned to the church that he wrote a series of three motets intended for use within the orthodoxy: 'The Lord's Prayer' (1926), 'Credo' (1932), and 'Ave Maria' (1934). Stravinsky was raised in the Russian Orthodox Church, but in his young adult life, his religious practices were 'put on hold' so to speak. Schubert's original published score for this song was not set to the Latin prayer despite its opening phrase 'Ave Maria.'

Schubert based his work on Walter Scott's similarly titled epic poem. In 1825, Schubert composed ' Ellens Dritter Gesang' (Ellen's Third Song) and included it in his collection of seven songs titled ' Liederzyklus vom Fräulein vom See' ('The Lady of the Lake'). Mascagni's Ave Maria is an adaption of his beloved Intermezzo (a piece of music performed between two scenes or acts in an opera) from the opera, Cavalleria Rusticana. Gounod's work was originally published for violin/cello with piano and harmonium, but in 1859, after receiving a request from Pierre-Joseph-Guillaume Zimmermann (Gounod's future father-in-law who transcribed Gounod's improvisation) Jacques Léopold Heugel released a vocal version with the melody set to the text of the Ave Maria prayer. 1 in C Major, which Bach published in 1722 as part of 'The Well-Tempered Clavier,' a book of piano music Bach wrote to sell to students interested in learning and perfecting their piano technique. In 1853, French composer, Charles Gounod improvised a melody to Johann Sebastian Bach's Piano Prelude No.

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