Sancta Maria, ora pro nobis in G major (K. Anh.C 8.55)
av Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Sancta Maria, ora pro nobis (K. Anh.C 8.55) is a short Marian song in G major that was long transmitted under Mozart’s name, but is now regarded as spurious and attributed to Friedrich Heinrich Himmel. The work survives, yet its original date, place, and Mozartian context remain unknown.
Background and Context
The entry Sancta Maria, ora pro nobis (K. Anh.C 8.55) appears in the Köchel Anhang as a work incorrectly assigned to Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and the current Köchel-Verzeichnis record attributes it to Friedrich Heinrich Himmel. The piece is transmitted in an extant source, but no secure Mozart autograph, commissioning circumstance, or contemporary documentation is cited in the modern catalogue record; accordingly, neither the year of composition nor the place of origin can be established with confidence.[1]
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Musical Character
Although sometimes described in older secondary listings as a Lied-like sacred song, the most reliable modern cataloguing point to its function as a compact Marian invocation—built on the repeated plea “ora pro nobis” (“pray for us”)—and cast in the bright, uncomplicated profile associated with G major.[1] With the attribution shifted to Himmel, the work is best heard not as a document of Mozart’s Salzburg church style, but as a later devotional miniature whose Mozart connection is purely one of transmission history.
[1] Internationale Stiftung Mozarteum (KV): K. Anh.C 8.55 — 'Sancta Maria, ora pro nobis' (attributed to Friedrich Heinrich Himmel; authenticity incorrectly assigned; key G major; transmission extant).