Glory to God

[mcb]

We have three or four Glorias in current use:

Bob Hurd's Missa Ubi Caritas (I get to play the drum for that one!!)
Peter Jones' Coventry Gloria (I get to play the organ loudly for the final Amen !!!)

We do those two plus:

Glory to God in the Highest (John Bell)
Gloria from Mass for John Carroll (Michael Joncas)
Gloria from Missa Latina (Daniel Bath)
Gloria from Mass of the Creator Spirit (Ed Nowak)

Daniel Bath's Gloria is challenging - all syncopation and Cuban jazz ryhthms - but there's no setting more exuberant and joyful. We did it at the Mass of Chrism a couple of years ago with piano, jazz trumpeters and Latin percussion. I don't know that any publisher has been enlightened enough to take it on yet, but that's their own silly fault. I'm sure it can be had directly from Daniel, though.

The Gloria by Nowak is from a fairly new Mass setting from GIA. It's powerful rather than joyful - there are some quite dark sonorities in there. Also fun and challenging for the choir, and a fiery organ part. But there's a people's refrain too. I like it a lot.

I wish I knew of more through-composed settings. I can hardly think of any at all I know that are any good. Any more recommendations?

M.

[Merseysider]

Might have mentioned this before (sorry if I have) but Chris Walker's Gloria Festiva is pretty wonderful. Unison with optional SATB

[Dot]

Once we had the facility to put up music on this website, I should ask for permission for the following Gloria settings to be put up, all of which were presented at Composers Group meetings:

Dancing Gloria by Paul Wellicome,
Glory to God by Martin Barry, a very straightforward through setting,
an attractive response and chant Gloria by Claire Spencer, with a French feel to it,
Daniel Bath's Gloria from Missa Latina,
Alan Smith's Agincourt Gloria

To the best of my knowledge, none of these has been published.
This thread highlights the potential usefulness of music on the website, doesn't it?

Dot

[Dot]

Oops, I forgot Daniel Bath's Gloria from the Missa Latina setting, and Alan Smith's Agincourt setting, two more worthy Composers Group pieces. I add these to my list posted earlier, and will do my research more thoroughly next time before knee-jerking.

One frustration with the Composers' Group as it stands: how to give the pieces presented there a wider exposure (assuming that they're worthy of it). The Dancing Gloria has reached a wider audience than the others through other SSG events.

Dot

[Sonoqui]

Is anybody still using any other items from the Coventry Mass? I always thought the Veni Sancte Spiritus was rather good, and we used it for a few years where I grew up, but haven't heard it in ages, or seen it in any books recently.

The Veni Sancte Spiritus is one of my favourites too and you will be delighted to hear that it is alive and well and was (excellently well) performed at the Confirmation Mass in my parish less than two weeks ago.

[admin]

I quite like the idea of Paul Wellicome's Dancing Gloria; who's it published by?

It isn't published by anyone. I suggest anyone who wants to look at a copy PMs me, and I'll get the composer to contact you.
admin

[Tsume Tsuyu]

Whenever our choir gets together to plan music, we struggle to find a suitable Gloria. We choose mass settings for a season, and so what we choose needs to be sung for several weeks – good from the point of view of the congregation learning a new setting, but grinding for us if the choice is uninspired. I understand why the Gloria is so difficult to set and I must confess that there are only two or three settings I enjoy singing that, in my view, capture the words of that beautiful prayer. They are:

Peter Jones' Coventry Gloria
Paul Wellicome's Dancing Gloria
A version by Alan Smith, written (but not published), to fit with his Agincourt Acclamations (Baptised with Fire)

Of all those we use in our parish, these are the ones that seem to evoke the mood of the prayer best (and the ones I most enjoy singing!).

I was reading an article from the 75th Anniversary archive section in Music & Liturgy this weekend - Joseph Gelineau, writing about The Missal of Paul VI. He says "....the Gloria hymn (a marvellous prayer, but one better suited to festival Masses than to the Sundays in Ordinary Time)." Maybe that's the problem; maybe the Gloria is too 'big' for Masses in Ordinary Time. Could that be why the 'grander' settings of it work so much better than the simpler settings, which just don't seem to do it justice?

TT

[Merseysider]

Weren't their plans to make the Gloria one of several optional opening rites? (The others being Penitential Rite and/or Asperges).
Is there an anorak out there who can fill me in?

[contrabordun]

Is there an anorak out there who can fill me in?

Dangerous question. This forum could get a week's conversation simply out what colour the anorak should be, before some wag starts a thread to identify the vestment most likely to denote encyclopaedic knowledge of the byways of liturgical reform.

[Tsume Tsuyu]

This forum could get a week's conversation simply out what colour the anorak should be...

I guess it would depend upon the question the anorak was answering - green for questions posed concerning Ordinary Time and other colours as appropriate!

Whilst I deny owning an anorak of any colour, can I just say that Joseph Gelineau's article, that I referred to before, is worth a read. He talks about the opening rite being far too cluttered and yet empty of what should be there. I don't have 'Music & Liturgy' with me, so I can't quote, but what Fr. Gelineau says makes very good sense.

TT

[gwyn]

Is there an anorak out there who can fill me in?

Down our way 'getting filled in' means you're given a good kicking, Mersysider, though I must confess I don't know that many tattooed, broken-nosed, cauliflower eared criminal gang-land thugs who are also liturgucal experts.

Someone'll correct me though I'm sure (but gently hopefully, and without a base-ball bat).

[Benevenio]

Admin's just put up the details of the latest issue of Music and Liturgy, so if you're not an SSG member, sign up and get a copy so you can read the Gelineau interview yourselves.

The line I found most interesting was where Gelineau is talking about the current farce over translation of the liturgical texts: Bishops themselves are protesting because they can’t do what they want to do regarding liturgical translations for their countries because everything is revised by Rome; and things are imposed on them by people who are not even familiar with the language(s) in question. This is intolerable. Furthermore, the present Congregation for Divine Worship is extraordinarily retrograde in its outlook — not just conservative, but actually backwardlooking. We therefore have to hope that [in addition to a new pope] something will move in the Roman congregations. A new pope? Who dares post that under Suggestions for Change then?

I'd heard that there were plans to have a "pick 'n' mix" opening rite, using the Gloria as one option, but this is not what is proposed in the Ordo Missae translation that ICEL recently sent to the Bishops (according to The Tablet's published text). Shame! Yet, on the other hand no - for if the Gloria becomes optional on a Sunday, will it be another thing that gets cut - in order to make the Mass as short as we can get away with, same as always hearing EP2 in some parishes, or omitting all the saints from EP1? Perhaps Gelineau is right - that it is too grand for Sundays in OT - yet it strikes me that if we were all daily mass goers, then we'd only hear it about 1 mass in 7. When we're only Sunday attendees, then we get a fairly unvaried liturgy. I know the mass is the "fount and summit", yet if it is all the same when the majority assemble, then that summit seems fairly flat (because there is nothing to compare it to, only summits of equal height). Perhaps there's an argument for not always celebrating the Eucharist when we meet, for more encouragement for the people to assemble on a Sunday evening not for Mass but for evening prayer. Give me a more varied diet, please!

BTW, was that anoracs or Macs? (sorry, wrong thread! )

[mcb]

...though I must confess I don't know that many tattooed, broken-nosed, cauliflower eared criminal gang-land thugs who are also liturgical experts.

Come to the Composers Group meeting in Salford on July 10th!

M.

[mcb]

I'd heard that there were plans to have a "pick 'n' mix" opening rite, using the Gloria as one option, but this is not what is proposed in the Ordo Missae translation that ICEL recently sent to the Bishops (according to The Tablet's published text).

It was proposed for the English version of the 2nd edition of the Missal (I think I've got that right, though ICEL called it the 'Sacramentary'. The one that was swallowed up by Rome and led to the demise of ICEL in its previous incarnation, anyway.) This is what was proposed -

A: Greeting

B: one of -

1.  Blessing of Water & Sprinkling
2.  I Confess
3.  Lord, we have sinned
4.  Litany Lord, have mercy
5.  Gloria
6.  Other Sacramental or Ritual Gathering [e.g. appropriate to a Baptism, Confirmation, Anointing, Marriage, Ordination, Funeral]

C: Opening Prayer
(on Sunday, 3 cycles based on readings of the day)

(There's a good summary of the intentions behind this in the preface to Bob Hurd's collection of music Ubi Caritas, which offered musical settings to fit the proposed new arrangement of the rites.) All of this is quietly dropped from the recent draft translation of the thrd edition of the Missal.

M.

[Gabriel]

A question?
With the exception of the ubiquitous 'Coventry Gloria' and a couple of others mentioned - how old are most of the Glorias mentioned? - 5 years?

Or the question - how long do we expect a Mass part to last - say with annual seasonal use?

Gabriel