What a pleasant surprise to have received two editions of "SACRED MUSIC" in the mailbox today. My general MO is to thumb through the articles in order to prioritize which of them will require a significant amount of time to absorb and digest.
When coming upon Jeffrey Tucker's article in Winter 2012 V.139.4, "The Vatican Intervenes: No More Tropes in the Agnus Dei," I thought, "Oh, this I can manage in a lunch setting." Would that Jeffrey had confined his remarks to the title's implications. He rather chose to further his approval of curial intervention with the USCCB/ODW (presumably) regarding troping with a similar plea for the Vatican to also prescribe a solution to a problem with the pre-MR3 Glory to God settings that he literally declares was a collaborative intent that "amounted to a rhythmic occasion of sin: it put the first line in a clear triple meter (!)" But evidently to his chagrin, Jeffrey was "astonished" after MR3 that "the publishers (bwahahaha)" starting pouring out new floods of bowdlerized Glorias that mangle the whole structure. He doesn't cite a single setting from three years ago, nor of more recent vintage. Neither does he credit the spate of incredibly beautiful Glorias that have taken root elsewhere, both newly minted and recovered. And he wonders "How could this be happening?" He claims his inquiries "led...to an extraordinary revelation. The U.S. Bishops approved it. And that's that".
Well, yeah. But he can't resist the "j'accuse" moment of blaming the bishops for "unleashing" the publishers to undermine the intent of MR3's translation, prima facie. And he laments "I have no idea how the Vatican allowed this to happen...."
Uh, perhaps they've had a few other agenda items on their front burners than what the relatively healthy worship practices of U.S. Catholics experience on Sundays compared to Europe and elsewhere? Or an adjustment to one scandal after another, not all of them about biology and priests, that has plagued the curia under now two living Popes? Or the shifting ecclesiologies that have resulted prior to and since the abdication of Benedict XVI?
No, Jeffrey wants to know: "Why hasn't the Vatican intervened here?"
Well, let's just consider this right off the bat before we castigate the Liturgical Industrial Complex in the US still-breathing horse: could it have anything to do with the factual reality that inside the venerable walls of St. Peter's Basilica, some of the most "bowdlerized" renditions of the Gloria were sung and heard repeatedly in that sacred space. Whether from the era of Bartolucci, Liberti to the present day, under different scholas and different directors, Gloria of Mass VIII has been virtually "troped" by many and varied faux-polyphonists and, to add insult to injury, sung as if they were finales of a Verdi opera? JT sez all it would take to straighten these publishers and the dumb luck locals from perpetuating the "corruption of its structure and text" would be "One quick fax or email."
Is this from the pen of one of our most brilliant economists, organizers, and entrepreneurs we've come to know and love as "the bow tied one?" The zeal of one's convictions should not be undermined by the naivete of the "squeaky wheel always gets the grease."
6/8 time signature Glory's and refrain versions are not the sole archetype any more. And I would think that a journal as esteemed as SM would require a more thorough examination of the processes both domestically and institutionally than mere caricature. YMMV.