I often wonder, when I hear this piece: "What would happen if I, or one of my colleagues, had written a line like that? What would happen if I, or one of my colleagues, had published a line like that?

You wouldn't have deliberately sung it so badly?

Absolutely not glottal on each note. It does have a slur under it. It is possible to sing legato, without making it sound like Bing Crosby. It might be uncomfortable, but it does work. This sort of phrase does occur in hymnody occasionally. And there are certainly much longer melismae in the Graduale. I've never had a problem with this.

I would draw a major distinction between Common-practice Era metrical pieces and Gregorian chant in free rhythm.

I would suggest that the metrical pieces in Common-practice era have an obligation to consider the tonic accent, and not just shove phrases in and 'make them fit,' regardless of eighth notes.

Again, I'm not criticizing anyone or anything, just asking questions. And I feel silly singing "Lord God," where I do not feel silly singing that Ave Maria.

I hope I am entitled to my opinion. (not kidding)

I, myself, do not feel it is a well-written phrase, because it is very difficult for congregations to pick that up. Granted, with enough repetitions, it is possible.

Again, the phrase is what it is, no matter how rotten of a singer I am. I am no Matthew J. Curtis. I never claimed to be.

But I don't want to feel ridiculous singing the Mass.

As far as Glorias go, this one is, overall, better than many out there. I use it during the summer, with a most excellent organ accompaniment, of course! ;-) I have never heard the rest of the mass setting this is taken from. It may not even be in print, given its age. Granted, there is plenty of bad liturgical music out there. However, one could take a few notes, even from Chabanel, and not have anything positive to say about those few notes. The composition considered as a whole, could be fine.

Jeff

Granted, not the best treatment of the phrase, try resinging it without the Lor-Hord-Hord but instead Lo-o-ord without any accents or emphasis on individual syllables.

Let's see...at first, I was somewhat suspicious that Jeff's rant seemed to be based on four notes. (By the way, that should be an F# since this is pretty obviously in G.) So I went to listen to the mp3 and got a better context.

Compositionally speaking, the tune is childish - meaning, it sounds like it was written with children in mind. Without trying to sound like I'm defending the thing, I think there's a pragmatic reason behind this; a lot of these composers are specifically told by their publishers, "You have to make the tune drop-dead simple for people, because most of them are old/tone deaf/musically inept/texting/half asleep, and so you have to write a tune that's easy to remember, so use a minimum of notes, stay within an octave and try to keep it linear." Some of the blame lies with the composer for the lazy writing, but not all, because I'm certain (s)he could have done a better job given fewer/less irrational restraints.

As craftsmanship goes, the composer doesn't seem to have much of a sense of text painting. Why would you put EARTH (G) above GOD (D)???? I'm sure I could find other similar aesthetic blunders if I could be bothered to look.

My argument is (and has always been) that people like this stuff because they don't know that there's better music out there. And as long as composers and publishing houses continue to pander to the lowest common denominator and fail to up their standards, ours will always be an uphill battle.

Death by over-analysis. What a painful way to go! ;-)

i like the gloria, but i hate that phrase. he would have done well to simply use two half notes.

I would argue that this is (at least partly) due to trying to cram a non-metrical text onto a metrical tune. It's also partly due to the fact that the lame-duck ICEL translation of the Gloria is pretty sing-songy to begin with. It's easy to recite this translation with the same inflection as a Shel Silverstein poem.

Not that the text should be blamed for all crummy arrangements of it, of course. I'm saying that it lends itself well to such treatments. One underlying problem is the composer treating the congregation as dumber than they really are. Because of this assumption, the composer tries to recycle the same tune several times during the Gloria, thinking the congregation has a tonal memory of about a phrase and a half. Heck, the most interesting part of this Gloria is the middle section, when it changes keys, which is supposed to be sung by the choir alone.

In my opinion, the congregation will sing poorly only as long as composers assume that they sing poorly.

Whether or not a setting is word-painted, it does seem to me that some musical phrases are rational and some are merely utilitarian. I think that the ordinary is especially prone to utilitarianism, in order to maintain cohesion across a Mass setting. The chordal structure becomes the overriding concern. I honestly don't know how a composer could hope to maintain the initial creative impulse throughout the composition of a Mass, given these constraints.

I hope I am entitled to my opinion. (not kidding)

To be sure, Jeff, but now we're invited to infer that your previous stacking of the deck might have been tongue in cheek ;-) Anyway, your point can hardly be that, out of context, Haas' and Janco's settings of two words are objectively better, can it?

The first other non-responsorial Gloria that comes to mind is Schubert/Proulx, which sets the "Lord God" g_d b_g (an improvement??). Do Matthias, Powell or, my favorite, Felciano (all H82) appear in any Catholic hymnal?

Can anyone here report on submitting mass settings for the imprimature?

It's not a Baroque melisma where one naturally must engage in hocking in order to articulate; I would venture that hocking is less likely than Jeff assumes.

I don't think the Andrews Gloria is one of the enduring monuments of congregational settings of the ordinary, but for 1970 it ahead of the curve on through-composed English Glorias for the new translation.

As noted, the translation lends itself to baleful dance meters; at least the Andrews Gloria resisted that temptation.

My own reaction is that the F# is in the way here - a cleaner line would either be the two half notes suggested earlier, or G-E (two quarters or a dotted half and eighth - I lean to the former) on Lord.

As for text-painting: in the hands of geniuses, it can be marvelous. In the hands of yeoman, it's a treat best resisted strongly. Andrews appears to have been possessed with good self-awareness.

I taught this Gloria to my homeschool group--it was the best I could come up with in English that we could learn easily, sing a capella, and have some chance of dragging the congregation along, but the childishness was inescapable: among the smaller group who were also my Latin tutees, we referred to it as the "Barney Gloria."