Related but slightly off-topic: Which translation is preferred for new settings of the mass ordinary in English?

It seems to me that the translations published by the English Language Liturgical Commission are a decent choice, because it is in modern English and has a permissive license.

David, I've done a lot of Latin-to-English adapting over at my site (www.englishmotets.com), but never for the Ordinary. I've always figured that if someone was going to do a polyphonic Ordinary, they probably had the "infrastructure" to do it in Latin. :)

What do you have in mind?

+1 for @CGM's Missa pro editione tertia

@Xopheros, the only English translation which may be used in the Roman liturgy is the one by ICEL. The (Catholic) Ordinariates have their own official translation based on Anglican sources.

Here is what I would recommend: try writing your own Mass setting. Post it here and we will help as much as possible

If such a composition is tried, I would urge that it be done in an alternatim style. The interspersing of chant would allow for congregational participation which would, in turn, allow for the most wide spread use of the setting. There are plenty of historical antecedents with Palestrina, Ludford, Sheppard, and Issac having composed alternatim masses.

@Francisco_Carbonell It seems to me that this can be considered "vernacular" only in Greece. Or did you make an English text underlay, too?

I always thought polyphonic means independent melodies in each part (not aligned in rhythm or in text). Palestrina is an obvious example. Are you specifically requesting that formula or is SATB homophonic acceptable (also desirable) ?

davido, this is what you're looking for:
Missa Episcopi Joannis

@stulte What a great find! But how does one acquire the score?

That’s a real shame. I would like to use the work

@GerardH "the only English translation which may be used in the Roman liturgy is the one by ICEL"

Apart from the problem of a restrictive (non-)permission to set it to music discussed in other threads, I have had a look at the ICEL Gloria and noticed that it is at odds with all other vernacular versions I know:

English (ICEL): "and on earth peace to people of good will"

English (ICET/ELLC): "and peace to His/God's people on earth"

German: "und Friede den Menschen seiner Gnade"

French: "et paix sur la terre aux hommes qu’il aime"

Spanish: "y en la tierra paz a los hombres que ama el Señor"

Interestingly, the German catholic radio station "Domradio" answered to a listener's question that the formulation "seiner Gande" is based on the original Greek text of the Gloria and not on the Latin translation (Comment: It seems to me that the Latin is ambiguous, because, due to the possibly almost arbittrary word order in Latin sentences, it is unclear to which substantive the genitive in "bonae voluntatis" refers, to "Deo" or to "hominibus").

Is this ICEL version simply a "Chinese whispers" effect (Greek -> Latin -> English) as Domradio suggests, or is there some deeper reason for this unusual (WRT to all other catholic translations) choice?

Unfortunately, this makes a musical setting based on the ICEL translation problematic for use outside the US, I think.

Uh

the French and Italian translations are bad. Period. The Latin is to be translated, not the Greek. The Greek is not the text in front of us.

What Francis allowed to sneak through was a relaxation of Liturgiam authenticam. The Italian is especially goofy, because it’s not even a translation of the Greek; ditto for any other translation that is equivalent to the Italian but not the Latin or English.

The problem is that even after Veritatis splendor, people don’t believe in natural law and people of good will.

The ICEL setting is worldwide for Anglophones; unfortunately so is the AELF translation for French, and that missal is just goofy. Benedict’s resignation had another cascading effect.

Not that it actually matters, but the liturgical text is not either Vulgate: it’s the missal.

The Greek text doesn’t help since as Gregory DiPippo loves to point out, and does in the comments, that the Greek doesn’t mean what it is alleged to mean in these bowdlerized modern-language translations of the Gloria.

I was looking for something to do today, and so I adapted the whole Viadana "Missa L'hora passa" to the current Roman Missal texts (except the Credo). Here's a PDF, without the Gloria (which I haven't yet engraved). It's a surprisingly time-consuming process, shoehorning in the text and deciding what subtle adaptations are required in the music.

I hope to update this post at some point to include the Gloria (which is itself nearly as long as all the other movements taken together).

UPDATE: @Gerard & @Jeffrey, the Sanctus has been fixed.
UPDATE #2: Gloria has been added.
UPDATE #3: Agnus Dei fixed.