Ken, I love choirs. But I love congregational singing even more. The Episcopal Church in the USA has 2.5 million members; the Catholic Church has 76 million. The typical Episcopal Church has one service on Sunday morning; many Catholic churches have 5 or more Masses on the weekends. It is fantasy to believe that there will be a choir at every Mass, much less a good choir.

So a cantor/psalmist is necessary, if for no other reason, for the singing of the verses of the responsorial psalm, the gospel acclamation, and, ideally, a psalm at communion.

I too frown upon arm-raising or arm-waving cantors. And I see no reason for a song leader for hymns and, more important, having that leader singing into a microphone. Parce, Domine.

And, while I'm on a roll, I think a solo voice singing propers is mere legalism and, as such, anathema. If there is not a least a small schola cantorum, forget propers.

By way of my own experience, vis-a-vis Episcopal churches, the five that I am familiar with have from 2 to 4 services each Sunday. These are not exceptionally large churches, either. Almost invariably there is at least one each of Rite I and Rite II services, and usually only one service has a traditional choir, while other services may have a praise group or other music.

I think a solo voice singing propers is mere legalism and, as such, anathema

I very much understand the sentiment here. However, in certain situations it's not about legalism, it's about stratagem, particularly in a "stuffed Mass" scenario.
Examples:
If the Introit has to be relegated to being a de facto "Call to Worship" prior to an entrance hymn/song, a solo rendition isn't an encumbrance to corporate participation.
After the non dignus sum, again in certain situations choristers/musicians can/need to immediately receive Holy Communion, a soloist rendering the Communio accounts for that measure of time until the choir is in tact and can fully participate in a Communion hymn/song (or enjoin the Communio.)

All politics are local.

I think a solo voice singing propers is mere legalism would (in the absence of choir or schola) fulfill GIRM and Vatican II to a 'T' and, as such, is is not anathema.

I very much agree with Ken of Sarum. Granted the numbers of people and of masses are greatly different in the Episcopal and Catholic Churches. More influential than that, though, are the vast cultural differences which breed very different liturgical and ritual aestheses. Indeed, if both used the Novus Ordo, or if both used Rite One, the resulting worship aesthetic would remain almost comically different from the one community to the other.

I used the word 'breed' up above. This is not meant as a pejorative. It is very real. The Catholic clerical orders consciously breed a low church, relatively informal, more or less 'folksy' ritual aesthesis in which the people can hardly so much as say 'and with your spirit' without a pirouettist waving her arms for them to do so - and even then the result will be hardly audible. The Catholic clerical order has purposefully bred, and breeds, a ritual of pirouettists because of their cultivated contempt for the people's intelligence and capabilities - and their absolute care-lessness for ritual integrity. So, rather than cultivate congregations who eagerly fulfill their roles without needing to be treated like imbeciles, we breed a culture in which they are not expected to and in which participation is traded for antics from various male and female 'ministries' who have the preposterous egocentricity to think that people will not do their part unless they perform their antics. No one seems to notice that any participation that results from these antics is feeble indeed!

As for what a cantor is and does, we have had numerous discussions about this subject in the past. A cantor is NOT a leader of singing, he or she is NOT a 'song leader'. He or she is skilled in chant literature (in Latin AND in English), which he or she delivers authoritatively at mass. A cantor does NOT wave his and her arms around in the air and perform grotesque pirouettes. He or she leads chant, responsorial psalmody, antiphons, and such by introducing them and setting the pulse by the strength of his or her NON-AMPLIFIED voice. A cantor DOES NOT in any manner (except through his voice) draw attention to herself or himself. A cantor is not an announer of page, song, sit, stand, 'please join', and so forth. The people are not stupid - they know these things. They know these things, and should be told (once only by the priest) to do them enthusiastically without being 'invited' and cajoled with the antics of ritually pointless persons.

Ken, et al., are correct: where there is a choir or schola there is no need for a cantor, except to sing the incipits of any chant.

One may protest all day long about the differences between multiple masses, different choral arrangements, and so forth. These play their relatively minor roles. The primary, and, by far, the greatest difference remains to be that Catholics are purposefully and nastily bred, culturally conditioned, to put up with what passes for music, liturgy, and 'participation' in the vast majority of their churches.

MJO - I agree 100 present! For anyone interested, I am 60 years old and a former professional violist of major status, have been a professor, a composer and the part and full time music director / choirmaster and organist of several Catholic and Episcopal churches and cathedrals from small to extremely large music programs with mixed choirs, male and female scholas, men and boys choirs and literally huge choral programs with hundred of children K - 12 and trained dozens of cantors. I have been responsible for ALL kinds of liturgies from historical rites to contemporary. I am not a novice and have seen and experienced it ALL.

I honestly and sincerely say that I have seen more ills than good when it comes to the subject of cantors. Many of my more famous teachers, old church music friends of great renown here in America and in Europe ALL agreed that the position of a cantor in Catholic churches can be a mine field. Catholic churches can learn a great deal from Anglican and Anglican Use situations. A service program or leaflet can help greatly. There is no need for things to be announced as some cantors do. A cantor standing close to the organist makes a lot of ensemble sense. Grand-standing by anyone in a liturgy is contrary to the Christian servanthood ethos "do good and disappear."

Everything one does, should be done in humility so as to bring ALL attention and focus upon Our Lord and Savior - Christ Jesus. The greater you would be as a musician and artist in the church, serving your GOD given gifts, the more you will seem to disappear within the fabric of the liturgy. The greatest compliment that was given to me once as a principal violist was that I never brought attention to myself yet I made it look so easy.

ps - study St Mary's Catholic Cathedral in Sydney Australia.

I have never once sung anywhere that didn't a) have a VERY hot microphone on the lectern or b) tell me to bring the congregation in with super conspicuous arm gestures. I don't think of canting as a performance, but it's hard for it to not seem like a performance when I'm by far the loudest thing in the room. It's hard to know that those things are incorrect but have to do them anyway because "that's how it's done."

MJO, surely you have videos that could be posted?

the more you will seem to disappear within the fabric of the liturgy.

Excellent! The organ and choirs led singing while hidden in parish churches for centuries - singing hidden behind the altar or more frequently in lofts to the side or in the back of the church.

THE NUMBER BOARD lists the page numbers, silently and unobtrusively.

Of course, a new study could shed light on why music in many churches is thought to be just fine, if not excellent.

Dunning Kruger Effect

The Peter Principle!

Well that makes sense; speaking personally, I often struggle as a congregant (and stranger in a strange land) to hear the number correctly and find the right page in the hymnal quickly enough for it to be of much use to me. I expect the approach of projecting everything right up at the front may not agree with everyone, but I find it very useful myself.

The solution is Service Folders

The idea of a Service Folder is new to me. It makes me think of continuous effort and expense, which would be a hard sell round my way, though it sounds sensible in itself.

The solution is Service Folders, Mass Leaflets, etc., that list all the hymns, responsories, the anthems with translations when appropriate, and so on.

Moving from a liturgy that people observed and a few participating using expensive missals to one in which people are expected to fully participate in requires a service bulletin.

Another simple and elegant solution that, being Anglican/Protestant developed with a keen perception of the need, was totally ignored by the VAT II people.

The weekly cost would easily have been paid from the tithes of those that left because they were expected to bet on the ponies without a racing sheet.

Now the discussion has got going there is plenty of it! I want to comment using what Ken of Sarum said, only 18 hours ago, in the second post of this thread, as my starting point.
1/ Cantors are not new-fangled, St Jerome comments adversely on cantors who paint their throats (presumably with throat medicaments) and fancy themselves to be opera singers. The problem has been with us a very long time. [comment on Eph 5:19]
2/ GIRM says:

104. It is fitting that there be a cantor or a choir director to direct and support the people’s singing. Indeed, when there is no choir, it is up to the cantor to direct the different chants, with the people taking the part proper to them.

So that means that if the choir director is in a loft at the back of the church waving arms at the choir, there is still a role for someone to wave their arms at the congregation! (I do not neccessarily agree) NB not at the lectern.
3/ There is the role of 'psalmist or cantor of the psalm'. (assigned to the lectern).
4/ There is the Exsultet, at the lectern.
But on the other hand a cantor with the appropriate charisma can signal to a congregation merely by voice and posture (though perhaps not in the larger churches). Alas this charism seems not to be conferred on all good singers. And in recent posts at Pray Tell under the title Do it Rite Fr Ruff has spoken of the art of leading congregations with the organ.

Whatever happened to the priest chanting his parts?

Related. Some of what we are discussing can be chanted by the priest, such as the Kyrie Eleison, the incipit to the Gloria in Excelsis, and the incipit for the Credo. The question this begs is whether or not those parts are being executed in the manner suggested by the previous sentence.

To the subject: I do not think they should be called cantors because it is a corruption of the original use of the term and does not describe the position as it previously existed. They should be called Song Leaders because that is a more accurate description of what their function is and does not misuse the original term. I think that too many people just sit and listen, whether it is when a choir, schola, or song leader is singing. This of course begs the question of whether or not congregational singing is the goal of having music for the Mass in the first place. I do not believe that music was used in the Mass solely so that the congregation could sing it. I think that the notion that congregational singing should be fostered above liturgical and artistic concerns is misguided. I believe it has its roots in Renaissance humanism and 20th century modernism.

If there is not a least a small schola cantorum, forget propers.

I disagree. Even if you can't sing anything extra (like hymns), sing the propers. They actually belong to that specific Mass, no matter which, unlike hymns.

As for hymns, one can follow the organ just fine, providing that the organist is kind enough to make it possible to hear the melody, and not just overbearing pedal-play.

..there are zero announcements, zero welcome to St So and So's, and zero non-ritual speech during mass, zero cantors, and zero anything except the ritual text before, during, and after mass.

♥

Trying... so hard! Announcements are always the same, anyway, and then what is the bulletin even for?!

cantors....waiving

Honestly. It's frustrating. For about a year or so, we started having cantors at the lectern. Besides the fact that waiving/raising one's arm in such a fashion is tacky, I figured that if they couldn't tell that I had fully stopped singing the verse, and that the responsorial was returning, then "bringing them in" wouldn't be much help, anyway.
This is like choir members who insist on reading the chanted (by someone else) verses between repeats of polyphony or somesuch. Even if you waive your arms madly at them, they aren't going to be ready by the time they are supposed to enter, anyway!

(Our cantors are now in the choir loft, where they belong.)

Did Fr. Krisman suggest that the Proper of the Mass, which is considered part of it, is optional and can be omitted simply because a schola is not present to sing it?

It's not my suggestion. Check the GIRM.

If there is not a least a small schola cantorum, forget propers.

GIRM's first suggestion if the forces are not adequate for the GR propers is GS, which are perfectly Proper, and By Flowing Waters gives these in English. . All you need is a cantor, to my mind that is what a cantor is for. It is also what GS is for, as explicitly requested by VII in SC.

for the communio, you have a choir present.

For whom care it to be taken that they receive with ease, if one is walking a line between legalism and illegalism.

I'm required in one of my current cantoring positions to announce the hymns, one by one. I've scaled this back considerably from my predecessors (none of this, "Good morning! How are you? etc." drivel). I just say the hymn numbers. But there are days I'm tempted to say, "The hymn number is listed on the hymn board in plain view of everyone. If you can't see it, ask someone next to you who can. Mirabile dictu."

Now let us greet....

Now, isn't this the height and depth of infamy!
We are no longer entering the courts of the Lord and singing to him, extolling his universal sway, deeply thanking him for his love, but we are 'greeting' the celebrant. I've run into this cretinesque idiocy several times and always want to run screaming down the street yelling, 'no! No! You've got it all wrong' --- but something tells me they wouldn't 'get it' and would wonder what could possibly be wrong.
Catholics really don't think.
They are bred and conditioned not to.

Catholics really don't think.

That's our Tradition - Pray up, Pay up, and Shut up.
Lead to: Now let us greet our celebrant with the opening hymn "Behold our Glorious Queen"

Irish Tradition as well, though by no means universal, there was a also strong streak of lay scepticism about the clergy, certainly among men.

Here's a report on the average parish cantor (and cathedral cantor, come to it.)

We are required to say the following script (or our pay is docked).

"Good morning, and welcome to St. (So-and-So)'s Catholic Church, as we celebrate the (#) Sunday in (Season). Out of respect for worship, we ask that you silence all cell phones and other electronic devices at this time. (___) Thank you. Our celebrant for today's Mass is Fr. (_). Announcements. (Say all announcements that the priest will repeat before the blessing and dismissal). Please see the Parish Bulletin for other announcements of events in the coming weeks. Thank you. All hymns and mass parts can be found in the (Color) Hymnal. At this time, please stand and join in singing our Entrance Hymn, found in your (Color) book, Number (###), (Song Title), Number (###) in your (Color) book. Please stand."

Now isn't that a pain to say! Generally, I skip all the announcements, say the Missal Proper, and announce the hymn as "Please stand and sing number (###), (Hymn Title)." Of course, I get my pay docked and an earful from the rector.

Also, I'm supposed to sing in full operatic style, which I HATE doing. I'm also supposed to be singing as if everything was a story. (I can see natural swelling, but what they have us do is horrendous!)

Oh, and what's worse? During the homily, I get to interact with the celebrant, as he asks me questions and makes jokes about me, or makes me go to the lectern and sing something with him, etc.

I am supposed to lead the clapping and snapping (HELP ME), as well as do the wavy-arm thing like its done in some videos from ND de Paris; as in, CONDUCTING THE CONGREGATION!!!!! Well, more like waving my arms to the beat, but still.



So, there's the "WHAT IT TYPICALLY IS" part. How it could be bettered? Let me sing the intonings without a mic. (Which, suprisingly, is what I do in the parish I sing at. It's the cathedral and another parish that do most of the above). Let me sing the propers, even to a psalm tone, in english, with the organ then intoning the hymn, WITHOUT ANNOUNCEMENTS. Oh, and please let me print service leaflets. PLEASE.

This is what happens when music is used as a tool to suit an agenda or create an atmosphere instead of either for its own sake (performed well because it should be performed well), or even better for the sake of worshipping the Lord.