A Mosaic Of Church Melodies: Mass of St. Cecilia

Monday, July 7, 2014

Mass of St. Cecilia - Gloria

Next in the series of posts on Mass Settings is the "Mass of St. Cecilia" by Estela García-López and Rodolfo López. It is actually written for a bi-lingual assembly, to be sung partly in Spanish and partly in English. St. Cecilia is known as the patron saint of music and in my (humble) opinion, this tune does justice to her!

I recently happened to stumble upon this setting and was immediately drawn to it on account of its simple, catchy and energetic tune! I changed the tune (albeit very slightly) to make it easier for the kids to sing along. A requisite for children's hymns is that they should be simple, easy to pick-up and easy to memorize. This tune definitely ticks the boxes for each of those.

I ended up creating a midi version for myself to share with the children as it helps in learning the tune correctly. All you choir animators, feel free to put it to some good use :)

Find below the lyrics, the midi version, the video and sheet music for the same.

Lyrics:

Gloria - Mass of St. Cecilia

Glory, glory to God, in the highest

And on earth peace to people, people of good will.

1. We praise you, we bless you,

We adore you, we glorify you,

We give you thanks, for your gre-at glory,

Lord God, Heavenly King,

O God, almighty Father.

Glory, glory to God in the highest,

And on earth peace to people, to people of good will.

2. Lord Jesus Christ, Only begotten Son,

Lord God, Lamb of God, Son of the Father,

You take away the sin of the world, have mercy on us;

You take away the sin of the world, receive our prayer;

You are seated, at the right hand of the Father, have mercy(3) on us.

Glory, glory to God, in the highest

And on earth peace to people, people of good will.

3. For you alone are the Holy One;

You alone are the Lord.

You alone are the Most High, Jesus Christ,

With the Holy Spirit, in the glory of God, the Father.

Amen

Glory, glory to God in the highest,

And on earth peace to people, people of good will.

Here's the midi version : (English translation)
I've put in the English translation for the same. You can sing along with the tune using the sub-titles. If you wish to sing along, make sure you turn on captions and view the video in full screen mode. To hear the bilingual (Spanish-English) version, click on the second video on this page.

Give it a listen here : (Spanish-English version)

Sheet music: (English version)

To buy the sheet music, please click here. It includes choral arrangements, guitar and piano accompaniments etc. for the bilingual (Spanish-English) version.

Below is a minimalistic arrangement that you could use. Pair it with a good beat on the organ, play the right hand accompaniment and you should be good to go!

To save the music, right click the image for the sheet music below, click "Save As" and download it to a location on your computer.