Looking forward to the next batch of uploads……but back to Glorias.
I recentlywrote a Gloria with our primary school children in mind. It is responsorial with the response in Latin: “Gloria in excelsis Deo, et in terra pax, pax hominibus†The words of the main text, in English, divide into the three obvious “verses†with a more sober mood in the middle verse; they do not deviate from the ICEL text. Seems fine to me, but I was aware that current thinking favours through settings of the Gloria.
I have just read
this document which argues strongly against responsorial Glorias. It goes on to assassinate various responsorial settings, one of which I admire and one of which I loathe. I am not strongly swayed by the arguments presented, and am yet to hear a through Gloria that I feel our congregation would sing in its entirity. Perhaps the closest is Bob Hurd’s chant setting. If they’ll sing a response with conviction (and certainly the children do), that’s a reason for not rejecting it as “a liturgical, musical and semantic disaster†(
ibid).
Just one point that the author made was persuasive enough to make me want to modify my text. He states that the phrase “and peace to his people on earth†is a poor rendition of the Latin “
et in terra pax hominibus bonae voluntatis†or â€â€¦â€¦
eudokias†in Greek. There’s no way I can tag “
bonae voluntatis†on the end of the refrain for musical reasons, but it does make me wonder what they’ll come up with in the new translation to try and convey this meaning.
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