Salieri's observation seems sound. Perhaps, going a little further, a part of the seeming difficulty for some in the new is that the accentual pattern is not as consistent as it is in the old: 'Glory to God in the highest' flows smoothly enough, but then 'and peace on earth to people of good will' does not continue the initial accent pattern and, admittedly, does not flow as smoothly, even bearing in mind that this is unmetred prose. While it's a shade on the clunky side (that word, 'people', is the real stumbling block), it isn't anywhere near as awful as some would make it out to be. The real beauty of it is that it says what the Latin says: '...peace to people of good will', as if to say 'peace' is contingent upon 'good will'. This subtlety was lost in the old translation, which really butchered the entire literary form of Gloria. Best of all for flow is the Anglican Use version: 'Glory be to God on high, and on earth peace to men of good will'. (Ahh, Cranmer!) This almost has the grace of the Latin, Gloria in excelsis Deo, et in terra pax hominibus bonae voluntatis, which, one would think, a conscientious translator would strive to emulate.

on earth peace to people of good will
not
peace on earth to people of good will
---

Setting aside issues of gender inclusiveness (which some care about, others don't, and others care about specifically avoiding).

peace to men of good will
vs.
peace to people of good will

On the one hand, I'm inclined to think "men of good will" is a bit more euphonious in English. On the other hand, I have a hard time with the idea that it is somehow more close to the 10-syllable Latin original "hominibus bonae voluntatis."

If anything, the reduplication of "pe" in "peace to people" offers a little bit of an internal interest, and "people" feels more like any of "bonae", "volun", or "tatis" than do any two syllables of the Cranmer phrase.

---

NOT THAT ANY OF THIS MATTERS.

The text is the text. It does not need our apologia, nor do the whiners deserve our attention.

It is not a case of stressed versus unstressed syllables when setting prose texts such as the text we have at hand. I think that one has to account for the PRIMARY stress more than any Secondary stress in setting prose texts. Even with the phrase "Glory to God in the highest" (in either translation), with just stressed/unstressed syllable mindset, one can fall (and many have indeed fallen) into the trap of "Oom-pa-pa Oom-pa-pa Oom-Pa" right from the start, which pretty much hamstrings you in anything that follows.

To my way of thinking, "Glory to God in the highest" has primary stress on "GOD" and secondary stress on "Glo-" and either primary or secondary stress on "high-" (probably leaning towards primary, since it occurs at the end of the phrase). Next, "and on earth peace to people of good will" is impossible to render only with stressed/unstressed analysis. Primary stress seems evident on "peace" and "will" (although one could argue that "good will" is two successive stressed syllables, with "good" seondary), and secondary stress in "peo-" with any other places (such as "and" or "earth") being somewhat debatable.

The point is that, in sung music, perhaps even more so than in speech, phrases have very few (often only one) primary stresses and rather few secondary stresses. If the music is to serve the text, and it should, then one has to be aware of these issues and compose accordingly. How to achieve such stress without wielding a sledge hammer takes some thought. One does not simply put all stresses on the downbeat of a bar, and this is especially true of secondary stresses.

There's much more that could be said in an analysis of the Gloria text, but I'll stop here.

Note: Other people may have differing analyses, but the point remains that one has to have a sound way to look at the relationship to text and musical stress.

I've just introduced the ICEL chant setting of the Mass to my new congregation (I'm relatively new to the Parish, not them). We sing it unaccompanied. I am sure I'm not getting everyone to sing, but I am still hearing people singing. I also know some don't like it, but they had been doing Mass of Wisdom since 2011, and the priests were sick of it. It was time to change, and this way we can really sing the Mass, especially as the priests chant more of their parts.

~Conor