Parsons simply sets the lines found in the Gospel of St Luke and has no invocation for the dead (authorized by Pope Pius V in 1568).
Settings of the Ave Maria are not frequent in England-even William Byrd only set them as required by the liturgy in his two books of Gradualia (16) rather than as stand-alone pieces. Ave Maria has become Parsons’ most famous and well-loved motet since it was included in the Oxford Book of Tudor Anthems in 1978.
