The Hinge of the Psalter

The Gloria Patri's liturgical work is structural. Appended to every psalm and canticle in the Divine Office, it acts as the hinge on which the psalter of Israel turns into Christian prayer, each psalm ending by lifting its words into the praise of the Trinity. A monastic community that prays the full office therefore sings it dozens of times a day, and its opening was long the standard versicle with which the hours themselves began. The rosary gave it a second universal home, ending each decade, so that the prayer belongs equally to the choir stall and the kitchen chair. The tradition also knows when to fall silent.

In the old Roman rite the Gloria Patri was omitted in the last two weeks of Lent and in Masses and offices of the dead, its note of glory suspended in mourning, a silence as expressive as the singing. Music has carried the text everywhere psalmody has gone. Every Gregorian psalm tone ends with a formula for it, Anglican chant inherited the habit through the Book of Common Prayer's Glory be to the Father, and choral settings of psalms and canticles almost invariably crown themselves with a doxology movement, so that the Lesser Doxology is, by sheer repetition, among the most frequently sung texts in the history of music.