Ave Verum Corpus

Vikingur Olafsson made an unforgettable impact on the music world with the release of his first three Deutsche Grammophon albums: Philip Glass Piano Worksa(2017), Johann Sebastian Bacha(2018) and Debussy Rameau (2020), all of which earned the Icelandic pianist global critical acclaim. For his fourth DG album, Mozart & Contemporaries, set for release on 3 September 2021, the multi-award-winning Olafsson has devised a characteristically thought-provoking programme. It features a selection of his favourite Mozart keyboard works, including the Sonata in C minor K457 and Adagio in B minor K540, together with pieces by other leading composers of the day: Haydn, C.P.E.aBach and the lesser-known Galuppi and Cimarosa. The Mozart works are taken from the last ten years of the composer's life, by which time, as Olafsson explains, "Mozart was not just perfecting the Classical tradition but subtly subverting it. The shadows are darker, the nuances and ambiguities more profound." Ave verum corpus (Hail, true body), (K. 618), is a motet in D major composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in 1791. It is a setting of the Latin hymn Ave verum corpus. Mozart wrote it for Anton Stoll, a friend who was the church musician of St. Stephan in Baden bei Wien. The motet was composed for the feast of Corpus Christi; the autograph is dated 17 June 1791. It is scored for SATB choir, string instruments and organ.