Gloria in Excelsis Deo - Musical Settings

Musical Settings

The Gloria has been and still is sung to a wide variety of melodies. Modern scholars have catalogued well over two hundred of them. The Roman Missal indicates several different plainchant melodies. In addition, several "farced" Glorias were composed in the Middle Ages and were still sung in places when the Roman Missal was revised by order of Pope Pius V in 1570. These expanded the basic Gloria by, for instance, adding to mentions of Jesus Christ a mention of some relationship between him and his mother. The use of these additional phrases in honour of the Blessed Virgin Mary was so common that in editions of the Roman Missal earlier than the 1921 revision, the text of the Gloria was followed by the rubric: "Sic dicitur Gloria in excelsis Deo, etiam in Missis beatæ Mariæ, quando dicenda est" (When the Gloria in excelsis Deo is to be recited, it is recited in this way, even in Masses of Blessed Mary).

Almost all polyphonic settings of the Mass include the Gloria. In addition, there are settings for the Gloria alone, including:

• Gloria (Vivaldi), RV 589, and the less famous Gloria RV 588.
• Gloria (Poulenc)
• Gloria (Saint-Saëns)
• Gloria (Rutter)
• Gloria (Handel), for solo soprano and strings, lost and then discovered in 2001

There are also many musical settings of translations of the Gloria into various languages.

The Gloria features prominently in the popular song "Silence" by Delerium, a trance song.