A Foretaste of Heaven: Musical Teleology in Mozart's Ave verum corpus, k618

Abstract

In June 1791, having composed almost no church music for ten years, Mozart wrote the short motet Ave verum corpus, k618, a setting of the Latin medieval eucharist hymn. The theological teleology in the text introduces a process-like aiming at a goal that cannot, however, be reached. This study is about how teleology operates in the motet – the ways in which the text's ultimately unfulfilled goal-directed processes operate in Mozart's music. The music is approached from a variety of analytical perspectives that reflect different aspects of this theme: the new Formenlehre and phrase structure, topic theory, and the analysis of voice-leading structure, register and hypermetre. Together, these approaches elucidate the multiplicity of musical processes that, as in the motet's text, announce a goal but fail to reach it.