Settings of the Gloria in English

Adam Wood

The idea that "We glorify you" is bad poetry because it has an accented syllable followed by three unaccented syllables is fussbudgetry nonsense (in my opinion, of course).

All accents aren't created equal. A slight accent on the "fy" of "glorify" is one solution.
Getting over a hangup on having an accent on "you" is another solution.

Aside from that, how else is someone supposed to translate "glorificámus te"?

The old-ICEL answer - which was, essentially, "don't bother to include that part" seems like the worst form of infelicity. To call the accurate translation's handling of this an infelicity seems (to me) totally crazy. Maybe you could argue "awkward" (though I disagree), but unfaithful? Hardly.

And the Anglicans have been singing "We glorify thee" for 400 years, often (though not always) to chant tones of one sort or another.

ronkrisman

Adam, there may have been some validity to one or more of your points if I had said the things you say I did.

Adam Wood

Adam, there may have been some validity to one or more of your points if I had said the things you say I did.

Then I am confused.

What did you mean to say when you said the Gloria translation has many infelicities, and that among them is "We glorify you," and that this is why singing it to a Psalm tone would be a bad idea?

ronkrisman

Precisely. I called the phrase, "we glorify you," an "infelicity." I said nothing about "bad poetry." I said nothing about ICEL, which, by the way, had nothing to do with the previous translation. I said nothing about the phrase in question being unfaithful.

I did say that the phrase was a challenge to composers, a challenge which some composers have successfully navigated and others have not. I did not say that all psalm tones could not meet the challenge. In fact, my principal criticism of psalm tone settings of the Gloria was something else: the literary form of the entire text.

Adam Wood

The word "infelicity" means "unfaithfulness."

And since the text is clearly not unfaithful to the original Latin, my assumption is that you have a problem with it based on its bad poetry, an assumption aided and abetted by your explanation that the problem is one of textual accents.

So... I'm sill confused, I guess.

And the ICEL/ICET issue. I apologize for not remembering which group of ridiculous bureaucrats famous for creating bad English translations was responsible for the particular bad English translation I referenced.

Salieri

Thinking about MJO's previous post: I think that both types of Gloria (i.e. Refrain and Psalm-tone) are types of a "lowest common denominator". There are many beautiful settings of the Gloria (chant and metrical) that are neither psalm-tone or refrain, that are simple enough for a congregation to pick up. Of course, there are melodic/thematic repititions, there have to be or it would be completely incoherent as a single piece of music.

Kyriale Gloria VIII
Kyriale Gloria XI
Kyriale Gloria XIII
Du Mont Missa Regia Primi Toni
du Mont Missa Sexti Toni
du Mont Missa Secundi Toni
Charles Giffen's Ascension Mass Gloria (posted above)
Adam Wood's Mass of the Blessed Fire
Proulx's Community Mass
The Masses in the Lumen Christi Missal by Columba Kelly and Adam Bartlett
There are tons of settings on the Corpus Christi Watershed site

There are more things out there than Gloria XV and the Mass of Creation.

I have found that sometimes the things that the congregation can pick up extremely quickly are the things that they get bored with quickly. They can sing something like Gloria XV for a month (four Sundays) and it sounds great, then after about the fifth Sunday, the participation begins to die away because they're bored with it; it just doesn't sustain interest long enough for them to care about singing it anymore.

ronkrisman

The word "infelicity" means "unfaithfulness."

In what dictionary? Seriously.

CHGiffen

Okay, I'll jump in here.

Just what is infelicitous about the phrase "we glorify you."? I see and hear a primary stress on the second syllable ("glo") and a secondary stress on the fourth syllable ("you") since it is a separate word, the direct object of the phrase. That is the way that almost every English speaker I know of will speak it. And it's probably the best way for it to be sung (at least in chant settings). Whether that means that only "you" is sung to the final note of the phrase or all of "glorify you" is sung on that final note is, it seems to me, a matter of taste.

Time and time again we are told that, there is an accent (whether primary or secondary) every second or third syllable, at least in Latin and English (the latter seeming to exhibit more secondary accents). I don't necessarily subscribe to this universally, for it probably depends upon (regional) dialects.

In metered settings, there is more leeway. I see nothing wrong with the triple-meter treatment: we | glo-ri-fy | you (and that is just what I've done in my own Gloria). It's also possible that a composer might lengthen the first syllable of "glorify" as a way of tonally painting the notion of gorification: we | glo-o-o- | o-ri-fy | you.

chonak

"infelicity" = "unhappiness", unless it's an autocorrection error for "infidelity".

Spriggo

in·fe·lic·i·ty
ˌinfəˈlisitē/
noun
noun: infelicity; plural noun: infelicities
1. a thing that is inappropriate, esp. a remark or expression.
"she winced at their infelicities and at the clumsy way they talked"

M. Jackson Osborn

Well, as everyone (including Adam) knows very well, 'felicity' references a high degree of bliss. What Adam obviously meant was that something that was unfaithful could not possibly be an ocassion of felicity and, therefore, infelicity might well infer unfaithfulness, which is certainly infelicitous. At least, he may have meant that... if he were stretching things. Still, I would have to agree that there is nothing inherently infelicitous (regardless of one's meaning) about 'we glorify you'.

(With Easter on the horizon, one might wish to include in one's repertory that marvelous anthem, Most Glorious Lord of Life, by William A. Harris on a text by Edmund Spenser, which includes the following in stanza two: 'This joyous day, dear Lord, with joy begin,/ And grant that we for whom Thou didest die,/ Being with Thy dear blood clean washed from sin,/ May live for ever in felicity'. This anthem is found near at hand in The Oxford Easy Anthem Book, and is available, as well, in octavo form. One could not ask for a lovelier, more charming, easier, nor more felicitous, Easter anthem.)

Adam Wood

I retract the comments I made regarding the word "infelicities."
Apparently I was confused.

I still do not understand what is "unhappy" about "we glorify you."

ronkrisman

I consider "glorify you" infelicitous precisely because it is not that easy to set it to music. I very much appreciate what CHGiffen wrote above, but I wonder whether the "you" actually has any secondary stress at all when spoken in that phrase of the Gloria. We know the "you" is a pronominal direct object whose antecedent is "God" or "God in the highest," and that in the context of "we praise you, we bless you, we adore you, we glorify you" the four verbs are stressed and the four "you's" are not. IMO if there is any word stress on "you," it comes from the musical stress.

Yes, ordinarily English has an accent/stress on every second or third syllable, and having a stressed syllable followed by three unstressed syllables is rare. (If "sanctuary" were a poetic foot, is there even a name for it?) How a composer sets the four syllables to music can lead to some clumsy, unhappy results.

Adam Wood

I'm curious if you have an alternate translation you would prefer.

noel jones, aago

Psalm tone and Anglican chant tone settings can make the infelicities of the new translation even worse. Check how every setting of the Gloria treats one of the worst of those "infelicities": gló-ri-fy you, an accented syllable followed by three unaccented syllables (like "sanctuary" in psalm 63). That phrase is found in a sequence in which each verb gets the stress: We praise you, we bless you, we adore you, we glorify you... Check to see how many settings which use a psalm tone have the last phrase coming out as: we glorify you.

Yes, it can. but you have the right and the ability to change Anglican chant. My setting was to make it simple to sing for those who have never chanted. An experienced director will change that, knowing that they have the ability to demonstrate and teach chant by singing one of at least two alternatives, attached.

M. Jackson Osborn

Belabouring this point is rather strenuous, given the evidence of some centuries of quite felicitous musical settings of 'we glorify thee'. From Byrd to Willan and beyond there is no evidence of infelicity. (I'm quite sure that it never ocurred to all these generations of Anglicans that what they were singing was.... um, 'infelicitous' [surely, this would be shocking news at King's College, et al].) If there was anything infelicitous it was the mangled, literarily mauled, translation of Gloria to which we were subjected until present happier times. I never ever managed to sing it with a straight face.

M. Jackson Osborn

Of the three solutions given above by Noel, the last is The Only Right One. It would be extremely rare (and clumsy) to begin a bar of Anglican chant on an unaccented syllable. This would definitely be regarded as, er, infelicitous. Noel's third solution is quite graceful and respective of good Anglican chant pointing. There are other solutions to this, ones which would involve moving the cadence further back in the text, and would be more complicated to sing. For instance, with a seasoned choir one might point the line thus:
we praise you, we bless you, we a-| dore you . we | glorify you.
However, Noel's simpler solution is, in this case, undoubtedly more satisfactory.

noel jones, aago

MJO and I rarely agree. Time to pop out the bubbly.

While, and I could be wrong, Gregorian chant is a bit more inflexible when it comes to english, but the ability with AC to point as you wish is wonderful.

If there were time a AC vs GC class would be good at CMAA someday.

The seasoned choir one is perfection and, if learned by the leader, not that difficult to impart to the singers who will lock in on it forever.

MarkThompson

(If "sanctuary" were a poetic foot, is there even a name for it?)

Why yes! It is called primus paeon or first paeon. Quintilian said of it in the Institutio Oratoria, "aptum initiis putant," "it is believed fitting for the beginnings of sentences."

Richard Mix

...felicitous musical settings of 'we glorify thee'. From Byrd to Willan...

I can't remember the Byrd setting; where is it exactly? No doubt it would have turned out felicitously enough.

Looking at H82, Willian succeeds, though not without effort: 3/2 "we(q) | glo(qh)-ri(q)-fy(h) | thee".The Old Scottish version takes a prudent approach to the pointing: "we praise thee, we bless thee, we | wor-ship | thee, * we glorify thee, we give thanks to thee for |thy great : glo-| ry." Merbecke (at least as adapted) puts two eighths on "glorify", suggesting the infelicitous (but peppy) adaptation of the rest: "we praise...You! We bless...You!..."

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