There are four texts to chose from and the composer can use part or all of one of the set texts
1) Gloria (In either Latin or English)
Gloria in excelsis deo,
et in terra pax hominibus bonae voluntatis
Laudamus te.
Benedicimus te.
Adoramus te.
Glorificamus te.
Gratias agimus tibi propter magnam gloriam tuam.
Domine Deus, Rex caelestis, Deus Pater omnipotens.
Domine fili unigenite, Jesu Christe.
Domine Deus, Agnus Dei, Filius patris.
Qui tollis peccata mundi, miserere nobis.
Qui tollis peccata mundi suscipe deprecationem nostram.
Qui sedes ad dexteram patris miserere nobis.
Quoniam tu solus sanctus.
Tu solus Dominus.
Tu solus Altissimus, Jesu Christe.
Cum Sancto Spiritu in gloria Dei Patris. Amen.
Glory to God in the highest,
and on earth peace to people of good will.
We praise you.
We bless you.
We adore you.
We glorify you.
We give thanks to you for your great glory.
Lord God, Heavenly King, God Almighty Father.
Lord Only-begotten Son, Jesus Christ.
Lord God, Lamb of God, Son of the Father.
You who take away the sins of the world have mercy on us.
You who take away the sins of the world hear our prayer.
You who sit at the Father's right hand, have mercy on us.
For you alone are holy.
You alone, Lord.
You alone the Most High, Jesus Christ.
With the Holy Spirit in the glory of God the Father. Amen.
2) Psalm 150
Lord! Praise God in His sanctuary,; praise him in the firmament of his power.
Praise Him for His mighty acts; Praise Him according to His excellent greatness!
Praise Him with the sound of the trumpet; Praise Him with the lute and harp!
Praise Him with the timbrel and dance; Praise Him with stringed instruments and flutes!
Praise Him with loud cymbals; Praise Him with crashing cymbals
Let everything that has breath praise the Lord.
Praise the Lord!
3) From “The Peak Mountains” (Buxton 1812) by James Montgomery
Health on the open hills I seek…
Ah! Who can look on Nature’s face,
And feel unholy passions move?
Her forms of majesty and grace
I cannot chose but love.
Emerging from the caven’d glen
From steep to steep I slowly climb,
And far above the haunts of men,
I tread in air sublime:
Beneath my path the swallows sweep;
Yet higher crags impend
And wild flowers from the fissures peep
And rills descend.
Now on the ridges bare and bleak,
Cool round my temples sighs the gale:
Ye winds! That wander o’er the Peak;
Ye mountain-spirits! Hail!
Angels of health! To man below
Ye bring celestial arts;
Brings back to Him, form whom ye blow
Our praise and prayers.
My soul this vast horizon fills,
Within whose undulated line
Thick stand the multitude of hills,
And clear waters shine;
Grey mossy walls the slopes ascend;
While roads, the tire the eye,
Upward their winding course extend
And touch the sky.
Hither, of old, the Almighty came;
Clouds were his car, his steeds the wind:
Before Him went devouring flame,
And thunder roll’d behind;
At his approach the mountains reel’d
Like vessels to and fro;
Earth heaving like a sea, reveal’d
The gulfs below.
Behold the everlasting hills,
In that dark convulsion scatter’d round;
Hark! From their caves the issuing rills
With sweetest music sound;
Ye lame and impotent! Draw near;
With healing on her wing.
The cherub Mercy watches here
Her ancient Spring.
4) A Musical Instrument – Elizabeth Barratt Browning
WHAT was he doing, the great god Pan,
Down in the reeds by the river?
Spreading ruin and scattering ban,
Splashing and paddling with hoofs of a goat,
And breaking the golden lilies afloat
With the dragon-fly on the river.
He tore out a reed, the great god Pan,
From the deep cool bed of the river:
The limpid water turbidly ran,
And the broken lilies a-dying lay,
And the dragon-fly had fled away,
Ere he brought it out of the river.
High on the shore sat the great god Pan
While turbidly flowed the river;
And hacked and hewed as a great god can,
With his hard bleak steel at the patient reed,
Till there was not a sign of the leaf indeed
To prove it fresh from the river.
He cut it short, did the great god Pan,
(How tall it stood in the river!)
Then drew the pith, like the heart of a man,
Steadily from the outside ring,
And notched the poor dry empty thing
In holes, as he sat by the river.
"This is the way," laughed the great god Pan
(Laughed while he sat by the river),
"The only way, since gods began
To make sweet music, they could succeed."
Then, dropping his mouth to a hole in the reed,
He blew in power by the river.
Sweet, sweet, sweet, O Pan!
Piercing sweet by the river!
Blinding sweet, O great god Pan!
The sun on the hill forgot to die,
And the lilies revived, and the dragon-fly
Came back to dream on the river.
Yet half a beast is the great god Pan,
To laugh as he sits by the river,
Making a poet out of a man:
The true gods sigh for the cost and pain, --
For the reed which grows nevermore again
As a reed with the reeds in the river.
Return to Sheffield Oratorio Chorus Homepage