Gloria in excelsis Deo
et in terra pax hominibus bonae voluntatis.
Glory to God in the highest.
and peace to his people on earth.
— “Gloria,” Beethoven, Mass in C Major; translation, Carnegie Hall program notes; performance by Orchestra of St. Luke’s, March 5, 2010
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NO — “to his people on earth” is deliberately wrong.
How can one — why would one — mistranslate unambiguous words from the Latin mass? It is
Glory to God in the highest.
and peace on earth to MEN OF GOOD WILL.
Men of good will is not a “generic” phrase. It means something. To men (yes, men) of good will.
Words have a literal meaning and a connotation. Here it is the literal meaning that is in question. In my mind, these beautiful words always have evoked the thought of a community of well-meaning people, of benevolent spirits. But the anonymous translator here (read, verbal axe-wielder) has substituted the anodyne “his people on earth,” e.g., earthlings. Presumably for the sake of political correctness. This strips the phrase of its meaning.
I am offended, deeply so, that someone would change the text of a beautiful mass by Beethoven, the text of the Latin mass which has existed for over four centuries.
— posted by Roger W. Smith
March 6, 2020
Roger's rhetoric 
Amazing that you caught this mistranslation. It’s horrible that the Latin text was mistranslated for the accompanying program notes for a Beethoven concert at Carnegie Hall. It was a devious thing to do, a mistranslation of a text by some anonymous arbiter of language driven by their own standard. What about the purity of the translation? Good work, Roger.
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