JL -
Without going into detail, Anglican chant as we know it is a phenomenon of the post-Henrician English church. It likely traces its lineage to fa-burden and other similar procedures typical of the late mediaeval and renaissance eras. The 'English tub' style of organ with which we are familiar did not evolve until well into the XIXth century, so Anglican chant of the earlier periods may well have been a cappella or accompanied by the relatively small English organs of the Tudor and post-Tudor eras. Will that do as a very brief and essentially speculative answer? About the theorbo, etc, as 'continuo' instruments with Anglican chant at that time: well, this, too, would be mere speculation, though I would tend to think it rather unlikely. I'll shuffle through some books this evening and search for something more definitive.

JL's suggestion of a consort of viols is delightful, She may be onto something. This is certainly thinkable, but still, in my opinion, not likely - at least not at liturgy. Maybe at court, private psalm singing, and such. You raise some very interesting possibilities.

P.S. - I would love to see you leap small buildings in a single bound - I've no doubt that this is great fun!..... and, I'm so glad for you that you are independently wealthy, which enables you to be the donatrix of a sixty rank Martin Pasi organ at your church!

P.P.S - I love bagpipes too! And I get to hear them, live!, every week. When I go to teach my piano students at St Thomas' Episcopal School, various groups of the school's internationally famous pipe and drum corps will be rehearsing on the parish garth. They have been to Scotland many times and have repeatedly won the highest honours in the international competitions there.

Time has not allowed me to address the discussion about whether American culture could be inculturated with the thought to which it was due. I now have such time, so here goes!

There has always been a tradition of popular music in Western culture, consisting basically of the popular dances and ballads of the time. The popular music of today fills the same role, although in today's highly commercial mass market pop culture, the dynamics are somewhat different. At no point in history has the church decided that popular style music is appropriate for the liturgy. Why would now be different?

This understates the historical degree of overlap between music considered entertainment and music considered liturgical. Bach and Beethoven were writing music for people to be entertained by, yet they wrote Masses in the same genre as their popular works. There are also numerous examples of secular polyphony, such as this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0yi2MMtIimY. The historical reality is that there has been a grey area between sacred and secular.

Western art music is part of our American culture. It is all around us—in movies, commercials, etc.. There are more symphony orchestras and more people going to see classical concerts now than at any time in our history. I grew up in this culture, and was inspired to become a classical musician. The idea that the US is somehow such an outlier culturally that special considerations need to be taken into consideration with regard to it's sacred music is absurd.

Our American culture includes but is not limited to European musical genres. Nearly all genres of music that are native to the USA are some kind of blend of European and African influences. Why should the European influences be allowed in the liturgy but not the African ones?

They don't like chant

While I think you have a simple case that European hymnody and classical music are part of our culture, I don't think the same can be said of chant. Chant is, in my opinion, foreign to American culture. Since chant's pride of place is limited by the phrase "all things being equal", we should consider to what degree other genres of music should be admitted to the liturgy in order to speak in the native musical language of our people. Note that I am arguing against the exclusive use of chant, not against the use of chant.

.This by itself is not a reason to lower standards in worship.

I do not believe that we should lower standards for worship. I also do not see how the liturgical documents set exclusive use of chant as the standard for worship. While you may not agree with my judgement as to what is good music, I absolutely believe that musical selections for the Mass should be held to the highest lyrical and artistic standards.

O goodness! We are not some foreign culture. We are part of the larger Western culture. We are part of the same culture that gave us the historical sacred music that we have. The question is: do we offer the best, most appropriate music that our culture has to offer, or do we hand things over to the folks who prefer pop music and guitar, and call it sacred music?

We are a distinct culture from Europe. Our native musical genres blend European and African traditions in a way that only could have occurred as a historical accident of slavery. So the question as I see it is should we harmonize sacred music with the genres that belong to our culture, or only the ones that are of exclusively European descent?

I would suggest listening to some of the classics (Palestrina: Sicut Cervus, etc) and then exploring the world more. You will find "a new dimension in the world of sound" (how many get that reference).

About 4 years ago I became aware that I had a knowledge gap with these composers and I have put some time into listening to their works. It hasn't changed my opinions on liturgical music.

Incidentally, it is quite fitting that we should have a preference for European music...We in the Roman Church also have a musical inheritance, Gregorian chant, the one music that is characteristic of the Roman rite; the only one which is not merely permitted, but praised by a Church council. And there is Renaissance choral polyphony, which also has the honor of being mentioned by name in the teaching of Vatican II. And for instruments, only one is praised: the pipe organ.

If this proves anything, it proves too much. If the culturally appropriate music to the liturgy is exclusively chant and polyphony, that gets rid of all English hymnody and such luminaries as Charles Wesley and Isaac Watts. Yet Sacrosactum Concilium does not say only chant and polyphony, but rather "The Church acknowledges Gregorian chant as specially suited to the Roman liturgy: therefore, other things being equal, it should be given pride of place in liturgical services. But other kinds of sacred music, especially polyphony, are by no means excluded from liturgical celebrations, so long as they accord with the spirit of the liturgical action, as laid down in Art. 30." It would say "but sacred polyphony is by no means excluded" rather than "other kinds of sacred music, especially polyphony..." if they meant that we should have chant any polyphony only. It continues to say "119. In certain parts of the world, especially mission lands, there are peoples who have their own musical traditions, and these play a great part in their religious and social life. For this reason due importance is to be attached to their music, and a suitable place is to be given to it, not only in forming their attitude toward religion, but also in adapting worship to their native genius, as indicated in Art. 39 and 40."

I find it be inconsistent to allow English hymnody but not gospel music. Both are genres other than chant and polyphony. Absolute statements against gospel or folk genres of sacred music, including contemporary worship music, descend into a tyranny of personal preference. I will admit that my preferred genre has many terrible works in it; I will not admit that it has no great ones.

Don't be too too flattered, sir, by the fox business. Being in the hen house pretty clearly labels him as predatory - not a trait of which any Christlichen Mensch would be envious. Too, it is noteworthy that our Lord referred to Herod as cette renard - not a comparison that should 'make one's day'. Further, that you take pleasure in that unflattering simile rather than take to heart anything else that our members have offered for your aedification should give you cause for reflection and 'unmake' your day.

Yes, but...

...Church law allows....

Yes, but... Yes, but... Yes, but.... The curious and unsettling thing, sir, about these adolescent sorts of banter is that, no matter what the Church puts forth as paradigmatical, those who haven't a whiff of interest in that paradigm will focus on any and every loophole, will ferret out any smidgen of 'wiggle room', will with great ingenuity devise 'interpretations', by which they might 'legitimately' ignore it in favour of whatever they wish to do - rather than say 'this is the Church's highest desire, so it must be the best, so this is what I will do'. This is as far from flattering as is the north from the south. With an absence of rancour I suggest to you that the only music that seems to be of interest to you is guitar (preferably electrified) music and that meretricious genre of song which you happen to like and meets 'your personal definition of good'; but which, in the light of what the Church has extolled as 'a treasure greater than any other', is not within light years of the Church's definition of good. Still, it would seem that you haven't a sou's worth of interest in the Church's preferences - only in its allowance of lesser things. When one thinks about it, there is nothing flattering about this. In this you have scads of company - most of whom, though, would not be entertaining themselves here.

Do continue your game.

_____________________________________________________

...chant is foreign to American culture...

Oh, and about chant being, according to you, not indigenous (or whatever) to American culture. Well, I think that we can safely say that the only indigenous American music is currently fighting for survival on Indian reservations (at least on those reservations which haven't become gambling meccas). Other than this, your statement is wildly inaccurate. Chant, as well as other European genres was imported here from the earliest of times by Catholics who settled in particular locales. And, the French and Spanish even taught it to the Amerind, some of whom proudly composed quite respectable polyphony! The French even obtained an indult allowing them to put the chant into their Amerind friends' languages.

Further (and there are many on this forum who will attest vociferously to this), chant was taught, sung, and loved by millions upon millions of Catholic school children, Catholic adults and lay people rather extensively from the XIXth through the mid-XXth centuries, right up to Vatican II. They could sing it fluently, they loved it, they memorised it, they had no difficulties with it, they weren't so much as mildly bewildered by chant notation, they carried it in their hearts, they were proud of their chant, and of their Latin. There can be no question that this culture was deliberately, gruesomely, and systematically annihilated in the wake of the council by bishops, clergy, and chic lay elements who wreaked their liturgical reign of terror on a bewildered Church populace. Millions left the Church and nobody cared. Nay! Do not dare to say that chant was any more strange to the American Catholic community, and a goodly portion of the Anglican community, than Charles Wesley's hymns were to the Methodists down the street. To do so is to perpetrate a grizzly fraud of the highest and most shameless order. And, I offer this: a beautiful thing that was systematically destroyed can (and should) be just as systematically be restored, especially considering that what was put in its place is almost wholly lacking in cultural validity and musical merit. Hmmph. Speak of something that was fashioned on the sly out of whole cloth and foisted off shamelessly on none other than God's own people!

Nor can one place other cultural influences than European ones on an equal footing with the latter in the North American Continent. (Before coughing and sputtering at that, as further reading will reveal, it isn't a 'racist' statement, nor does it discount other influences in this 'melting pot'.) By a vast margin, the American population, until very recent times, has been of European extraction. Nearly all of us who aren't Black, Yellow, Red, Bronze, or Brown are European colonists. I am a European colonist. While there are many other influences, for which we all are grateful, by which our European foundation is enriched, still, our predominant cultural attributes are European. He who would deny that our political philosophy and fundamental intellectual tradition and jurisprudence have their deepest roots anywhere else than our Graeco-Roman heritage, further developed by European philosophical, musical and literary thought, and that our moral fibre (such as it is) is basically derived from Judeo-Christian roots, is deliriously out of touch with reality. It does not well behoove anyone to discount this, or pretend that it isn't so.

I don't think that anyone who has ears to hear or eyes to see can deny that there is a tremendous anti-European attitude being purposefully cultivated and engineered in our day by our intellectual elites, our minorities, our educational institutions, and even our church. Any trace of 'Europeaness' is fast being as air-brushed out of the popular consciousness as is Christianity itself. Even many of those who are of European heritage are falling all over themselves to erase their own heritage, act as though it is something of which to be ashamed. They think that respecting others' cultures means obliterating their own. It doesn't. I'll finish by saying that all my life I have encouraged others to value their own particular heritage, their language, their native culture, not to Anglicise their names, to preserve their own priceless cultural identity, sought and valued their friendship - and sought to be enriched by what they had to offer me. One of my neighbours here at Harwood Court is an Indian Sikh, born in Boston, a man of impeccable moral character, who has married a Catholic wife. I count his friendship a great honour and am thrilled that he preserves his cultural identity. This doesn't mean that those of us who are European colonists shouldn't do the same with respect to our own culture. It isn't a sin to be European in heritage and to preserve that heritage - music and all. No! It isn't. It is a virtue.

What is a sin is to replace it with sacro-pop, sacro-rock, faux folk, and other stuff, electrified guitars, jazz combos, rock bands, musical pablum, that shallow emotional exercise which with pure irony is called 'glory and praise', grand pianos (if not mere 'keyboards') but no organs, and Ed Sullivan liturgy, pirouetting 'cantors', and...... and.....
Also sinful is to subject noble and redeemed human beings to all the above until they have become so inured to it that they believe it to be normal, and that, if their priests and musicians can help it, they'll not find out that there is something far better - their true heritage.

__________________________________________

I absolutely believe...musical selections...for the mass should be held to the highest lyrical and artistic standards

One could not, but by some contorted casuistry, infer that the person who wrote these words and the person who advocates the music and instruments that he does are one and the same.

Not a fox, not an interlocutor.

A simple flame-warrior. VERY simple.

I just don't see many parishes having someone who can play guitar at the level necessary to do what he suggests.

Plenty of people know how to play guitar and piano well. But good musicians don't want to play terrible music, which is what they have encountered if they have set foot in the average Catholic parish any time in the last 40 years (at least).

The parish I grew up in has THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE in it, and they can never find a half dozen decent musicians to sing in the choir or play in the band. Terrible music is terrible.

Bach and Beethoven were writing music for people to be entertained by, yet they wrote Masses in the same genre as their popular works.

No, they didn't. That's as silly as saying that Bach wrote a Sarabande for harpsichord and a Prelude for organ and they were the same genre.

Most parishes have many talented classically-trained musicians in them, probably more than the average middle of the road Protestant parish due to the value of education in the Catholic mind.

But there is no place for them in a Catholic parish. They are not welcomed and even shunned by untrained guitarists strumming away and priests who welcome volunteers not for their ability, but as a tremendous cost savings.

More organists on this list play in Protestant churches to be able to feed their Catholic families than you might suppose.

MJO said, in reference to Sacred Harp:

This is genuine folk music!

I watched the video and very much enjoyed this music. But, the Irish can have good folk music but the USA can't?

There has always been a tradition of popular music in Western culture, consisting basically of the popular dances and ballads of the time. The popular music of today fills the same role, although in today's highly commercial mass market pop culture, the dynamics are somewhat different. At no point in history has the church decided that popular style music is appropriate for the liturgy. Why would now be different?

I should have added to my previous comment that English and Irish folk tunes have been used for many venerable hymns. These include:
-What Child Is This (GREENSLEEVES)
-Be Thou My Vision (SLANE)
-I Heard the Voice of Jesus Say (Kinngsfold)

The list could go on. Point is, folk tunes from England and Ireland were commonly used for setting hymn text. Why allow these but not American folk tunes?

There seems to be some self-loathing of American culture going on here. Particularly:

Nor can one place other cultural influences than European ones on an equal footing with the latter in the North American Continent. (Before coughing and sputtering at that, as further reading will reveal, it isn't a 'racist' statement, nor does it discount other influences in this 'melting pot'.) By a vast margin, the American population, until very recent times, has been of European extraction. Nearly all of us who aren't Black, Yellow, Red, Bronze, or Brown are European colonists. I am a European colonist. While there are many other influences, for which we all are grateful, by which our European foundation is enriched, still, our predominant cultural attributes are European. He who would deny that our political philosophy and fundamental intellectual tradition and jurisprudence have their deepest roots anywhere else than our Graeco-Roman heritage, further developed by European philosophical, musical and literary thought, and that our moral fibre (such as it is) is basically derived from Judeo-Christian roots, is deliriously out of touch with reality. It does not well behoove anyone to discount this, or pretend that it isn't so.

While our philosophical and intellectual tradition is primarily or exclusively European, I contest that the same can be said for our musical traditions. Look at any genre that is native to the United States: White Gospel, Black gospel, folk, blues, jazz, rock. Common to all these genres is a melding of European traditions with African traditions such as polyrhythm and different scale systems (Gospel singers slide between notes because in Africa the notes they are sliding through are legitimate notes - if someone were to make an "African" piano, there would be keys in between our black and white keys). '

Perhaps you are a European colonist, but most people who have grown up in the USA regardless of their race have been influenced by these native American genres of music. Further, I doubt many are currently alive in the USA with 100% European ancestry. Recall that Musicam Sacram speaks of "Adapting sacred music for those regions which possess a musical tradition of their own." It seems to me that you have an impossible case to make that the USA lacks musical traditions of its own.

I don't think that anyone who has ears to hear or eyes to see can deny that there is a tremendous anti-European attitude

I'm not sure if you are directing this comment at me, but if so: I love classical music and I am a classically trained pianist. To be very clear: I am arguing against the onlyist position, not against the existence of music of European origin in the liturgy.

Further (and there are many on this forum who will attest vociferously to this), chant was taught, sung, and loved by millions upon millions of Catholic school children, Catholic adults and lay people rather extensively from the XIXth through the mid-XXth centuries, right up to Vatican II.

Do you have a source for that? My understanding is that the low Mass was the most common form of worship prior to Vatican II which substituted English hymnody for the propers. A friend of mine once sent me the index of a pre-Vatican II Catholic hymnal. The entire index was of English hymns, many of which were of poor quality.

Nevertheless, I recognize that some chant existed back in the day and far more of it than exists now. Referencing my previous post, I think that chanting as much of the text of the liturgy that is currently spoken is the ideal and if that ideal is followed that other genres for the 4 hymns would be less controversial. In fact, such an arrangement seems to me to be the most harmonious juxtaposition of Musicam Sacram 61 with the statements calling for Gregorian chant to have the pride of place all things being equal.

those who haven't a whiff of interest in that paradigm will focus on any and every loophole

That's a clever rhetorical strategy. However, the liturgical documents say what they say for a reason and they don't support your position. Seeing as the documents don't support your opinion, you are attacking the correct reading of them as relying on loopholes.

Perhaps loophole would be an accurate term if they documents said something like "you should have chant and polyphony, but may allow for inferior music for pastoral reasons." Yet, Musicam Sacram 61 specifically calls for the inculturation of native music.

Being Byzantine working in a Latin parish - I know, they are all crazy, lol - I approach liturgy from a different perspective. Ever since Augustine put far too much emphasis on the individual, the problem of what I like, what I feel, my emotions has been a field of landmines in western liturgy. Perhaps partly the reason the east doesn't have much regard for Augustine. I approach liturgy from an eastern point of view that it is the collective and public worship of the church. What we do, how we do it, and what we sing is in the rubrics and it doesn't matter how any individual feels. Pope Benedict laid out what he wanted from liturgy and music, and he hasn't been overruled by the current pope that I can find. I try to follow that. My pastor is on board with it, too.

I have told some who wanted "contemporary" music, mostly badly written stuff from the seventies, that they might be happier elsewhere. I use some more modern anthems and such when I find ones that are well-written. From a practical standpoint, if anyone brought a guitar into my loft, I would probably take it away from them and beat them with it. I never said I was a good Christian.

There is, btw, a guitar mass Sunday evenings for those who want it. It is attended mostly by people from other parishes who couldn't make morning masses for whatever reasons. Needless to say, I am never there.