CN31P
With its Marian emphasis, Ave virgo sanctissima is a beautiful prayer, closely related in spirit to the better-known Ave Maria and Salve Regina. This setting takes particular delight in the many open vowel sounds of the Latin text, using them to support and illuminate the moving depictions of the Virgin Mary as a ‘bright star of the sea', a ‘precious pearl', and as ‘beautiful and perfumed as the rose'.