I'll be honest, I'm not a big fan of that style of piece, and I'm also not a fan of orchestral Masses, for the same reason.

Many of them are gorgeous pieces of music if you take them as music, but I'm not convinced they are very well suited toward the liturgy in the same way other pieces are, since they tend to become performance pieces more than liturgical actions, especially when considering the vocal lines. It often pushes the line into the operatic style that (if I'm not mistaken) Pope Pius X tried to push back against in his Motu Proprio.

I just really don't like orchestral Masses liturgically. There. I said it. Sue me.

(that being said, I'll take a Schubert Mass over anything by Haas ANY DAY)

Schubert "Ave Maria"
Mozart "Ave Verum Corpus"
"Holy Art Thou" (Ombra Mai Fu)
Faure "Pie Jesu Domine"

Manifestly, the Schubert belongs in many fora, but not at Mass.

I don't like Mozart's Ave Verum, but that dislike doesn't make it, by nature, unsuitable for Mass. Elgar's would pass muster, I think.

Since I don't know "Holy Art Thou", I have nothing to offer about it.

Faure's Pie Jesu would depend on several factors. Is the accompanying instrument orchestral, the organ, or the piano? Is it sung emotively (think "I have loved you with an everlasting love") or in a properly reflective manner? Could it be sung at a Requiem Mass?

I agree in general, though I think distinctions of style and origin can be made.

Faure's Pie Jesu is stylistically worlds away from Handel's Ombra mai fu, for example. Unless it's sung poorly...

Solos, just like organ music that draws attention to itself, work very well before Mass on special occasions. I can even see them being done on a regular basis.

They are more effective liturgically when the singer is not seen, nor amplified. The music should draw attention to itself and not be forced upon the body of listeners beyond the level of the average trained voice.

The Bach Toccata and Fugue in D Minor would be fine for a postlude.
The Pachelbel Canon would be fine for a Prelude.

Due to their notoriety, both would be distracting during Mass - as would be the Ave Maria of Schubert - the Ave Maria would be suitable at a Wedding, and even a Wedding within a Mass since that is a time when two sacraments are being celebrated.

I'll be honest, I'm not a big fan of that style of piece, and I'm also not a fan of orchestral Masses, for the same reason.

Someday you will feel differently about this, it will just take awhile. Honestly.

It's impossible to say anything consistent about them as a group.

I can think of some things.

I suppose that it might have a lot to do as arrangements of music for Organist and Cantor. The Mozart Ave Verum Corpus, for example, was originally scored for SATB Choir, Strings and Organ. I've stripped it back to organ and cantor.

Where I work, the cantors are only in public view during the Responsorial Psalm, but in most cases I have them by the organ, usually in the gallery, as a matter of practicality. You cannot get a cantor down to the ambo during one reading and back up in time for the Alleluia on many Sundays as the readings are too short to make the trip!

One future project for me is to do "Sanctify Us By Thy Goodness" as organist + cantor:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_kFGTCw61nY

kathy----?????????? congregations?

I don't know if I'd want to use the word "aria", which has definite operatic implications. "Song" might be better. there's a long tradition of these in the church. Of the examples given, the Schubert and Handel are contrafacta. There's a long tradition of that in the Church too, but the Schubert is a badly-done shoehorning of the prayer into a song written to Walter Scott's poem in translation. The Mozart is an arrangement, and better done chorally. I've no problems with the Faure, except that it no longer has a place in the liturgy, and the place it had is specifically connected to funerals (I have the same issue with the "ICEL/chant Sanctus")

The broader issue: I don't have an issue with the solo voice in church, as long as the music isn't ABOUT the solo voice. We have cantors for the Psalm, after all. There are some composers whose solo sacred vocal music would be intolerable in the Mass (I think of J. A. Hasse in particular). Most of the Viadana Concerti Ecclesiastici work well (but many just-slightly-later Baroque solo motets DON'T). There are many 19th c French things, some of which are tasteful, some not. Some oratorio arias work, some not.

Anything that HAS been done in church, and not subsequently forbidden, CAN be done in church. But note that that includes David Haas. Choose wisely.

Beautifully made point. But, a niggling correction: psalmists sing verses and the folk sing the respond, not an antiphon. Responsorial and Antiphonal forms are quite distinct and should not be confused, though they often are. The respond is what is sung by all in response to the cantor's solo verses in responsorial psalmody and propers.
An Antiphon is what is sung by groups A and B before and after these groups alternate the singing of verses.

Introit, Offertory, and Communion are processional-antiphonal forms.
Gradual psalm, and Alleluya with its verse are meditative-responsorial forms.

Surprising it is that a scholar of church music and hymnody finds 'respond' a strange 'Orwellian' locution! It is run across every day in chant lore, chant converse, and scholarly works about chant. A 'respond' is what is sung by all in responsorial psalmody, in which the psalm verses are sung by a cantor-soloist (or, at times, a choir). 'Refrain', while being a near ubiquitous and unfortunate signifer in poorly informed parlance, is an incorrect term for any item of chant-related literature. 'Refrains' are found in certain mediaeval and later verse-refrain song forms, such as carols, etc., but are not encountered in the Gregorian repertory of mass and office chants.

And, '...not... found in any dictionary'? Try Harvard, Oxford, Grove... and... the OED. Synonyms are 'response' or 'responsory'.

Umnnhhh....let's work with defining the term 'sacred music' and go from there.

Not all music with "bible words" is 'sacred.' (Out of time, or I'd find the Pian definitions.)

Larger-scale 'orchestral' Masses are fine in their place--which is a larger-scale Mass (e.g., pontifical, or with lots of attendees.) As to funerals, I think "less is more" is the watchword. The current fashion of 'celebrating the life' of Joe Doakes is perverse.

Jackson, perhaps it's a matter of simplicity, as in the interpretation of "respond" as a noun rather than a universal presumption as a verb. (Senior moment, Chuck, lucky I have no sense of self esteem ! )

L -

Oh, I can't agree!
Gravitas, you've hit upon it!, is just the right modifier.
There's nothing effete about it.
Nothing at all.
(If there were, I should never have used it!)

Perhaps "Aria" isn't the right word to describe the music.

I would call it religious solo music.

My question still remains: Is it a legitimate style of sacred music?

So I would have to seriously look at the choice of material and consider it to be like a motet or hymn where only one of the voices is being sung and the others are substituted by the organ. I might have to write new arrangements for some of this, or perhaps compose my own.