You should hear it in the original Greek!

Singing “Angels We Have Heard On High” in church this morning reminded me of something I thought of some years back when I was first learning Greek: namely, that you can replace the Latin refrain Gloria in excelsis Deo in the carol with the original Greek, Δόξα ἐν ὑψίστοις θεῷ (Doxa en hupsistois theo). It's not quite a perfect fit since δόξα has two syllables to gloria's three, but it's generally less awkward to stretch a syllable slightly than to squash another one in. 

I've mentioned this curiosity to a few people over the years, but today it occurred to me that with LilyPond I could engrave some sheet music to demonstrate it. I brushed off my LilyPond skills (which I found surprisingly fresh for not having been used in a few years) and spent a few hours today making this lovely rendition:

Thankfully, I found a version of “Christ, the Lord, is Risen Today” I'd done a few years ago laying around which gave me a very useful hymn template, including useful features like multiple verses and a refrain; otherwise having to figure out how to do that would've taken me a lot more than a few hours. There are a few small cosmetic tweaks I could still do (the lyrics attach to the soprano voice so there are few choices which simplify the lyrics handling at the expense of nice-looking notes), but it should be performable. I hope. Let me know if you do.

Anyway, Merry Christmas! I know it's been pretty quiet around here, but there are positive developments which I hope to share in the not-too-distant future. A hui hou!