SML,

Because we have an international readership, could you clarify "Hispanic Church"? Do you mean:

1) Spanish-speaking Catholics in Spain.
2) Spanish-speaking Catholics in one or more regions of South American or Central America.
3) One or more sub-populations of native-Spanish speaking Catholics in the United States?
4) What the "Big Three" American publishing houses think one of these groups really loves?

CK: There are dialectical differences between the USA north, south; Canada, Great Britain and Australia, but they all seem to be able to sing Holy God without an international incident.

If there is no common hymnody, then there is none.

CGZ: Are there any common hymns in all three groups? Spanish is Spanish in all the countries you mention, so is there common hymnody/song or has the Catholic church fostered a different music for each of these countries that is totally unrelated?

I am unable to speak or write for the "Big Three" you mention. They, like the rest of the business world, respond to what the customers want. No one can blame them for that.

Publishers who only publish what they think the public should buy are called Boutique publishers....possibly because the next occupant of their space sells dresses after the Boutique publisher goes under.

I do understand that the Spanish-speaking world may have chosen to stick with Gregorian Chant in Latin and only locally-generated popular religious songs appeared for prayer services - and none of them caught on enough to spread throughout the Hispanic language world.

If so, there is no common hymnody.

I wonder about that "Spanish speaking world." We have some from Guatemala who speak a Mayan dialect. They don't speak Spanish at all. My friend from Spain says no one in this hemisphere speaks Spanish, to begin with.

A quick peek at Youtube turns up a single tune for each, but if anyone's interested

¡Oh buen Jesús! Yo creo firmemente
que por mi bien estás en el altar,
que das tu cuerpo y sangre juntamente
al alma fiel en celestial manjar.

11 10 11 10 (Parry's INTERCESSOR, the genevan DONNE SECOURS, Barnby's O PERFECT LOVE)

1. Cantemos al Amor de los amores
cantemos al Señor
Dios está aquí, venid adoradores,
adoremos a Cristo Redentor.

but runs into a refrain... best stick with this, or maybe with enough tweeking O STORE GUD.

Then there's Alabado sea el Santisimo.

Hi. I'm from Brazil and I have a friend of Peru who is also a catholic musician.

In Brazil and Peru, canticles with refrain composed in vernacular predominate, in general is poor, ugly music and with pop or folk references. Chant as a rule only in some monasteries. There are some musics of this repertory (not adequated in the liturgical point of view but this is what is common in the mass here) that have translation in french, spanish, italian and portuguese, musics translated from spanish are very common in Brazil (Martin Valverde's "Nadie Te Ama Como Yo" "Ninguém te ama como eu" "Nessuno ti ama come me" for example).

In terms of sacred music you are in paradise in United States compared with the latins. There are some beautiful antique hymns of old hymnals (pre Vatican II) in portuguese and spanish but these in general are romantical with odd and antiquade expressions.

I have a work with chant in portuguese and I know that there are some work done in spanish. The best music available in portuguese and in spanish of latin-america as a rule are translations (or new lyrics to the same melody) of italian or german composers (as Marco Frisina for example) or music composed for the Divine Office (the hymns of divine office have excellent translations in portuguese and there is a book published by the Paulus publisher whith excellent melodies).

here is my blog and youtube channel with chant in portuguese:
https://inspiradonogregoriano.blogspot.com
https://youtu.be/oDjy99QMxhg

A work in spanish:
https://marello.org/simplex/collections/ordinary-i/

PS: Sorry for any grammatical errors, I'm not perfectly fluent in english.

The advantage of not being paid is that those who have knowledge of liturgical music may try to use the good repertoire without fear of being dismissed by priests who do not like Gregorian chant or reverent music (At most they would have difficulties of relationship or affective or they would have to use of prudence to gradually change the mentality of the parish priest and parishioners, being subject to tolerate an amount of bad music in the process) but there is also (and this is more common) the problem: there are few with knowledge and good taste and it is much easier to find volunteers to play with guitar religious music similar to pop or folk music.

"Bendito sea Dios" turns up pretty frequently in my archdiocese. And it's a real joy to hear pretty much every Spanish speaker present launch into it with gusto, after most of the English speakers have spent the whole Mass silently glaring at the choir.

I agree with "Bendito sea Dios."

There is indeed a basic core of Spanish-language sacred music, but very little of it is in hymn form. Most of it would be classifiable as a gozo. But there is a core repertoire of perhaps a couple of hundred works that virtually everyone would know and could sing from memory (provided there was at least one strong voice to initiate the singing and keep things moving at the changes).