One of the better-known settings of the Ave Maria text, Gounod's version from 1852 added a melody with its own operatic climax to the famous arpeggios of the C-major Prelude BWV 846 from Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier. He first published instrumental versions of it under the title Meditation, then tried fitting various texts to the melody until in 1859 he arrived at the definitive vocal version using the text of the Ave Maria. This Urtext edition provides source data with appropriate critical commentary.