"Justification" for choral Gloria
  • ghmus7
    Posts: 1,483
    Hi smarties:
    I'm unabashedly looking for support for the singing of a choral Gloria a couple of times
    A year. I know of the paragraph in GIRM and quoted in STTL about the how the Gloria
    May be sung by the choir alone, but can any of you offer further documentation
    argumentation etc?
    Appreciated.
    Thanked by 1Ally
  • BenBen
    Posts: 3,114
    Maybe I'm missing something, but in addition to appealing to longstanding tradition, isn't the GIRM + STTL enough?
  • melofluentmelofluent
    Posts: 4,160
    You might find an "overall" rationale in Mahrt's MUSICAL SHAPE OF THE LITURGY, Ch.2, "The Interpolation of Polyphonic Music (into the Mass.)"
    Addendum, I don't know why GIRM 2000 is "insufficient" defense, though.
    There is also a forum thread, "So I taught my choir a polyphonic Mass" that offers up many opinions.
  • Adam WoodAdam Wood
    Posts: 6,482
    1. Who do you need to convince?
    2. Why do you need to convince them?
    3. What is your reason for wanting to do this?
    Thanked by 2Ben MarkThompson
  • Chaswjd
    Posts: 269
    I have always wanted to do the Gloria from the Haydn Klein Orgel mass. It's less than a minute of unabashed joy. I am surprised it's not done more. Given its tiny duration, it obviates the objection that a Gloria would simply take too long.
  • Liam
    Posts: 5,093
    The GIRM provides it (the Sanctus, not so much, but a Roman sensibility would take occasional non-compliance in stride without trying to argue about a reinterpretation of the norm as such - it's an American sensibility to need such an argument). You can especially justify it on occasions when there are lots of visitors who won't know your usual parish settings of the Gloria.

    I view FCAP not in photo-shots, but as a movie: that is, I discourage people from viewing each Mass on its own in those terms, but instead the larger parochial pattern over time. People in our functionalist culture are vulnerable to assuming a photo-shot perspective on these things.

    I would also note there are those who disapprove of the opening rites becoming disproportionately full of singing...one way to reduce the amount of singing is to ditch the use of refrains in the Gloria (or at least only use them for the first several iterations while a congregation is getting to learn a new setting).
  • francis
    Posts: 10,825
    Because heaven deserves it?
  • matthewjmatthewj
    Posts: 2,700
    I have always wanted to do the Gloria from the Haydn Klein Orgel mass.


    Though I am charmed by the piece, this is a sort of extreme example of text-overlapping that makes me wonder if it is wise.

    If I wrote a Gloria for 40 voices that was 8 seconds long (all voices overlapping different lines of text at the same time), did the whole text really get sung in an intelligible way?

    I'm just not sure about it...
    Thanked by 4Casavant Organist CHGiffen Ben CCooze
  • BruceL
    Posts: 1,072
    The Haydn was used often before I came. I have the same objections Matthew has, but probably not strongly enough that I won't get it out this year, now that some time has passed!
  • StimsonInRehabStimsonInRehab
    Posts: 1,933
    Matthew J, there's always the "fixed" version by Younger Brother Mike. We've sung that before, and it's not much longer.
  • mahrt
    Posts: 517
    I have addressed the issue of the polyphonic ordinary in Sacred Music, Spring and Summer 2015, in a series of exchanges of opinion with Jared Ostermann. These issues are available online at musicasacra.
    Thanked by 2BruceL Ben
  • Chaswjd
    Posts: 269
    I understand that the Haydn is not the ideal given the extreme overlapping of the text. That said, it does make a rather joyful noise. And if you can just get one minute of time out of your Pastor for a choral Gloria, with the Haydn, you can finish it and probably have a few seconds to spare.
  • ghmus7
    Posts: 1,483
    Thank you all, i recall the musicasacra article and will look at it again.
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