The composer Kees Vlak has a preference for the Italian language which he refers to as “language which sings in itself”. When he read the words for an AVE MARIA he simply could not refrain from writing music for it. He feels that the lyrics lack kind of tension, but that they reveal love and tenderness. In his opinion the sentence showing much tension would be that one where Mary is asked to pray for us : “Prega per noi peccatori” (“Pray for us sinners”). In the music proper the chords here are full of tension and surprising. This tension is harmonically magnificently prepared with mediants in the section “Santa Maria Madre di Dio” (“Holy Mary, Mother of God”). Even more surprising then is the resolution of tension which is to follow in “adesso e nell’ ora della nostra morte” (“Now and in the hour of our death”).
IL SIGNORE È CON TE may be performed full of atmosphere during church concerts or at solemn occasions, and it may also be executed with chorus (ad. lib.).