Interesting nonsense! My parish sings that Gloria to the ICEL missal chants every week with no problems. Is the author saying that Catholics are so poorly educated these days, they can no longer read text? Is he complaining about the wretched music education so many receive, often in Catholic schools? Or could it be that some of the composers he cites write un-singable music?

I found this post to be among the dumbest I've read from PrayTell.

But I was positively delighted at the irony in juxtaposing the idea of non-literal translation as a good thing with the quote from the GIRM:

The text of this hymn may not be replaced by any other text.

Perhaps it's because composers (erm, song-writers perhaps in this case?) don't know how to effectively cope with a non-rhyming, non-metrical (prose) text? It's probably because we got so used to the obvious triple-time meter of the incipit of late ICEL - how many "Glory to God"s can you think of written in 3/4 or 6/8 in the past 50 years?

I bet if they tried chanting the Gloria to a simple, repetitive tone, like Gloria XV, Gloria VIII, Mozarabic, Merbecke, etc. it wouldn't be as daunting

Can we expect Collegeville to start a major in Hillsongs Ministries soon. Omigosh, that'd be so rad! I just know Fr. Anthony will find the best engineers to teach the Visual and Sound Ministry Majors. Do you think they'll have a Barrista Ministry too? Too much?
Okay, I'm wearing my shirt tails out with my sport jacket this Sunday in solidarity!

IIRC the Missal does not even give the Latin, instead settling for the ICEL chant. First, I'm of the opinion that ICEL's work with the chant is a B-. Second, I think it's implying people can't sing the Latin chant. It's too hard, too long, too difficult, etc.

That means it's particularly absurd to complain about the English setting as being too hard to sing. The ICEL setting is easy to sing, certainly easier than some of the composed setting. It's also bizarre the author cites a passage of Comme le prevoitwhich gives a literal translation of Et in terra pax hominibus bonae voluntatis that is easier to sing yet has been rejected on grounds of inclusiveness, since "man" and "men" have lost their inclusive meanings in English along the lines of the Latin homo.

At school we usually sing a guitar setting that, while lacking a refrain, is not a true through-composition. That said, we've all memorized the text, and we don't need to look at the missalette for it. It's really not that hard.

"The text is only too difficult if you go in with a defeatist attitude because you ideologically hate all that it stands for."

Isn't that the guiding principle of PrayTell?

Considering how often we are told that the world now has the most highly educated and involved Catholic laity ever, that should put an end to any fussing about how "haaarrd" the text is. For heaven's sake, singing it recto tono would be better than merely reciting it.

matthewj October 7 Thanks
Posts: 1,466
Chant is old hat.

Chant is ancient hat.

Well, I know MatthewJ has copyrights in that area, so he'll be particularly pleased.

The "ancient and venerable hymn" that is being THRUST from the people by this abominable translation is, according to the council which called it "ancient and venerable," also intended to BE SUNG IN LATIN ANYWAY SO THE TRANSLATION DOESN'T MATTER.

And, not that you could ever expect a PTB anti-intellectual to catch a detail like this, the new missal includes a nice melody that is also ancient. It works great IN THE LATIN IT SHOULD BE SUNG IN but also works nicely with the translation.

Oh, and venerable? This translation is loads more venerable than its predecessor.

Latin is also venerable.

Yes Kevin, we sing it at the other end of the state.......always! The text is not problematic when set in chant style or unequal meter or some compositional device that takes into account the somewhat irregular structure. And of course there is always the Latin text :)

In case my comment gets the boot, here is what I added to PTB:

Since the new translation came out, I have successfully (as in: the congregation participated strongly) used three settings at two different parishes:

Mass of Christian Unity – Vermulst
The Missal Chant Gloria
My own setting.

My own setting puts the words of the Gloria with a metered melody based on a hymn tune I sang a lot while living in Austria – Wunderschoen Praechtige.

So from my own experience, I know that:

a – the Gloria is not too long to sing
b – the Gloria is not impossible for congregations to sing
c – there are at least three settings of the Gloria in existence that are good enough quality to sing
d – the Gloria has not been taken away from the people – at least, not where I’m in charge
e – the new translation is not impossible to use, or to set to music myself
f – the new translation can be set to a metered tune successfully, or to a chant-style tune, without needing refrains
g – composers, myself included, have been presented with a translation that allows the faithful to sing

Frank, music directors all over the country (some of whom have just posted above) are successfully using many different settings of the new translations. With all due respect, why is this post worthy of featuring on a national liturgy blog? And why does it make sense to take your own difficulty finding/implementing a good setting of the Gloria, and extrapolate from there that the new translation is inherently unusable? Not trying to be (too) harsh here, since the new translation is certainly challenging to compose for. But there is a difference between a challenge and an impossibility.

Just sounds like simple laziness to me. Perhaps someone with an agenda? Sorry to be cynical, but we've seen a lot of that these days, haven't we? We all know that PIPs (certain ones, certainly not ALL of them) whine and complain about the status quo because it doesn't contain something specifically interesting to them, such as OEW not played enough for their liking, or the piano sits idle most of the time, or there's no guitars nor drums, etc., and Mass just doesn't "feel right" to them anymore. There are many, MANY, reasons for the last one (Mass not feeling right anymore) than just the music, but that seems to be what people pick on. My view is that the people that state they either left or joined a parish "for the music" actually joined for some other reason and they can't explain it. So, they just pick something that is their opinion (in their opinion anyway) so that nobody can really argue with them about it. This is especially true of people that leave a parish "because of the music." It could have been about the Pastor, but they're not about to say that on a survey, nor especially to his face if they are asked about why they're leaving, so they blame something they see as less important.

As for text and music being too difficult for people, I don't think that's the case at all. Even when everything is done in Latin, nothing is really too difficult, so long as people are willing to put a minimal effort into learning it. There are places where there is a wholesale rejection of Latin in the Mass (what is the reason for this? Certainly not because V2 said so), and many times the justification is "we can't understand it," or "it's too hard to pronounce." Yet, many of these same places will pick up on Spanish and sing it dutifully, even pronouncing the words correctly (Pan de Vida anyone?).

I don't think the problem is with ability: it's with attitude. Not "we CAN'T understand it," but "we DON'T WANT to understand it." It's a lack of effort on the part of those people who complain in this manner. As someone stated eloquently above: "...too difficult for whom...?"

PIP: Latin is too hard.
Me: Too hard for whom? I can do it just fine.
PIP: But I don't understand it: I can't do it.
Me: I'll teach you.
PIP: No, that's ok.

I think I will stop there before this becomes much more of a rant than it already is. My apologies.

We sing not only the Gloria but the Creed as well. I wonder what PTB would have to say about that?

Charles, the next ten days my boss and I must by loyalty support the teams of our youth. (I first saw Stan Musial play over sixty years ago.) After the NLCS has been decided, we will once again become baseball comrades in arms for the World Series. "Venite ad Stadio Buschensis!!!" "Ite, Cardinales!!!" Victoria XII in MMXIV!!!

Regii regnabunt.- Father, Are you prophesying another I-70 Series?

I know that Carl Schmitt said that the friend-enemy distinction was fundamental to the formation of any group identity

I've always thought of PTB and CMAA as "frenemies."

Father, Are you prophesying another I-70 Series?

No need to prophesy at all. The Royals-Orioles ALCS is an I-70 series. And if the Cardinals capture the NLCS, the World Series will be another I-70 series, either KC-St. Louis (my preference) or St. Louis-Baltimore.

@fcb

Of course there's a party line.

They ban people from commenting for no reason other than that they disagree with them.

I defended Fr. Ruff for a long time here and elsewhere for allowing an open discussion... but it's clear that I was mistaken.

I kinda sorta implied (and I'm experiencing it firsthand, also of late) is that the whole Vatican II mantra of "Mass, source and summit of our human experiences" is "waning" under this papacy.

Hic. Haec. Hoc.

Sorry to have derailed the thread. We can return to the real topic: the possibilities of a Cardinals-Orioles World Series.

It was the best part of the thread!

This new Gloria is too haaaard!

Why am I having trouble locating a Homer Simpson recording of this statement?

Warning: this is somewhat of a rant, with some suggestions and a setting.

This grousing about the new English Gloria text not being suitable for musical settings is just so much baloney. A lot of the complaining seems to work its way around, one way or another, to the phrase "and on earth peace to people of good will," or to expressions that amount to "O my God, we can't do a Gloria without a refrain, because 'Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to people of good will' is almost impossible to foist off on the people."

More generally, some assert that the Gloria cannot really be a hymn or "song" because it isn't rhymed, metrical, or strophic (with a fixed number of verses/lines be stanza). Hey, folks, I've got news for you: the Psalms, the Magnificat, the Nunc dimittis, the Te Deum laudamus, aren't rhymed, metrical, or strophic, but they are "songs" or canticles (hymns), too. Metrical, strophic and rhymed hymnody has its place, but it is generally less ancient than and should not supplant these older forms.

This complaints amount to a monumental, bodacious cop-out. A well thought out and and sensitive through-composed setting (a) needs no congregational refrain, (b) has no problem assimilating and addressing in a tasteful musical way the "people of good will" phrase, and (c) takes advantage of the other so-called (nonrhymed, nonmetrical, nonstrophic) problems such as the (wonderful) sequence "We praise you, we bless you, we adore you, we glorify you, we give you thanks for your great glory" (which should be somewhat of a high point in the setting), then the sequence of invocations to the Son, "Lord Jesus Christ, Only Begotten Son, LORD God, Lamb of God. Son of the Father," before beseeching the Son to be merciful and take away the sins of the world, and finally the sequence of "For you alone are the Holy One, you alone are the LORD, you alone are the most high" that leads to the concluding Trintarian acclamation: "Jesus Christ, with the Holy Spirit, in the glory of God the Father. Amen."

Finally, there are those who apparently deprecate triple musical meters as too "waltz"-like or "dance"-like, and that, since the first few words of the Gloria fall naturally(?) into a three beat stress pattern, the Gloria text is unsuitable because it cries out for a "waltzy" triple meter setting. More hogwash. There are two issues here: (1) those that think triple meters are inappropriate in the liturgy (because of their waltziness?), and (2) a triple meter for the Gloria setting is a straightjacket of some kind. Wrong, and wrong. It is plain foolishness to think that triple meter might be wrong or somehow seduce the musician/singer/listener into some kind of inapproprate state of non-grace by the mere fact of its being used. Such people either have not heard of or else reject the "perfect" (triple) versus "imperfect" (duple) stress metrical patterns, eg. "perfect with imperfect subdivision" (3/2), "imperfect with perfect subdivision" (6/4 or 6/8) or "perpect with perfect subdivision" (9/4 or 9/8), of the Renaissance composers, many of whom valued perfection in one form or another over incessant imperfection.

In modern usage, there are many ways to lessen the waltzy OOHM-pah-pah or OOHM-pah-PAH feel of triple time, such as (a) the judicious use of hemiola (2+2+2 in the space of 3+3) or (b) 1+2 (not just at a cadence), and (c) something other than starting on the downbeat or a one beat pickup in triple time (try a two beat or even four beat pickup sometime!). As for execution of triple meters, I suppose an organist can play (execute?) "Lobe den Herren" (Praist to the Lord, the Almighty) so fast that it seems like a Walpurgis Nacht sounding frenzied demonic waltz, but played with appropriate dignity, it is solemn with just the right gravitas that befits the text. Ditto for any of several other much beloved hymms, eg. "Alleluia, sing to Jesus", "Jerusalem, my happy home" or "Holy God, we praise thy name." I don't mean that these should be played too slowly, either. Any music has a (usually narrow) range of appropriate tempi. Paraphrasing the words of a famous jazz musician, play it not too fast and not too slow, just half-fast, yeah!

Keeping these things in mind, one might come up with something along the lines of my own setting (attached). Its melodies are something a choir and congregation can easily learn to sing, since it has certain recurring motifs (some "sequential") that lend themselves to rapid assimilation. And once the congregation is comfortable with it, the choir can learn and sing it in four part harmony. It has already been used in at least one parish (that I know of) with success and will soon be used in another parish. Try it, using the score, sing through it a couple of times, then see if it fits with the principles I've outlined above and decide whether it has the right "feel" for the Gloria. If you like it, let me know. If you hate it, don't be afraid to let me know what's wrong with it. Oh, and it comes in at about 2min 45sec.

Chuck Giffen

So is the text NOT METRICAL ENOUGH or is it TOO METRICAL?

So is the text NOT METRICAL ENOUGH or is it TOO METRICAL?

It's neither: it is what it is.