Do what works best for you, your singers, and your situation.

Diocesan EF: I always accompany our chant Masses, even in Lent and Advent. I believe it helps give people the courage to sing along and helps people who are new to the Latin Mass have a sense of continuity with the accompanied ordinary in the OF.

Before I started playing at our Latin Mass chapel, the congregation which was very small (about 25 people) sang the ordinary acapella, and they sang it very well, but they only knew 2 Mass settings. We now know all the settings in the Kyriale except Masses III, X and XII.

FSSP parish - no organ accompaniment to the chant. I'm very glad to be on the same page as my pastor.

I was the director of the music program at www.windsorlatinmass.com for several (pre-SP) years. We accompanied the ordinary (when chant) and didn't accompany propers.

2 Diocesan locations: I'm not the organist.
Yes at 1,
No at the other.

If we're stating a preference, mine would be unaccompanied Ordinary.

I serve as music director at St. Anne Church in San Diego, FSSP.
Accompanied Credo and often one other part of the ordinary. No accompanied propers, though sometimes we use a drone.
My preference would be unaccompanied, as is our organist's preference, but our pastor wishes the situation to be flexible as the need arises. And some of the choirs need accompaniment sometimes. So I view it as a crutch when needed and I'm fine with that.

Our EFs are Archdiocesan (or Diocesan, depending on where you go, since there are several locations that are just on the border of the Archdiocese of Indianapolis and the Diocese of Lafayette-in-Indiana where you can go), and I've seen it done both ways. The usual EFs that I have sung for have used organ for everything except the Proper (those were Archdiocesan). I have attended some in the Diocese where everything was chanted, except for the processional and recessional (I played organ and sung in the schola for those Masses). Short answer is both, depending on where you go.

the Latin OF

Is there a specimen of this rare animal about?

Train your choirs to think their pitches.

Don't we all wish. I am certain some of my volunteer choir can't even hear their pitches. I have threatened to give them on the trumpet so they might hear them.

As for accompanying chant, a capella is the ideal which should be, eventually, the achieved goal everywhere that chant is sung.

I don't see it as an "ideal" and always accompany the Ordinary. All this is no more than personal preference and I am not aware of any holy writ from the Church specifying otherwise. It's wacky how some want to enshrine their preferences. The organ is a consecrated voice that speaks for the glory of God just like the singers. No more, no less. All come together to praise the All Holy.

Spoken like a singer. LOL. Pius X is dead, and the rites of the Church have changed. Much of what he said isn't feasible for the new rite. In fact, much of what he said was based on the flawed scholarship of his time. The organ has been used for Catholic worship for what, a thousand years now? The human voice superior? Again, personal preference. I would make them more equal, giving a slight edge to speech, but that is my preference. It all works together, as I indicated above, for the glory of God. Individual musicians have to determine what works best in their unique situations and accomplishes that purpose best.

Keep in mind I am in an exclusive OF situation. I would worry about what is correct for the EF if I had anything to do with that mass. But I don't.

My point in all this, is to discourage the "chant police" who hold that all has to be done one way, only. Every place is unique, and accommodations often have to be made. No one should feel guilty or wrong for doing so.

Oh, now you can resurrect him? A great pope and saint, but a product of his time. I think much of what he proposed was what he wished for, since it was never realized in practice in the Latin Rite.

That's good. However, every choir is not the same, and what one can do is no indication of what another can do. As I indicated, a little trust in the musicians to make the best determinations for their situations is in order.

Casavant? No, they had Ruffatti - they were Italian. ;-)

WHat about French circus music?

It seems to me that an essential aspect of the question at hand is to distinguish between what is the likely and unassailably correct adademic and genre-specific nature of chant, and the equally unassailable logic of those who will, regardless, perform it however they wish and prefer, and will offer as their authority the vicissitudes of changing norms throughout history.

If our paradigm for chant is rooted in chant's natal eras, the following Carolingian develpments, and somewhat further into the mediaeval era, we can preach that chant is undeniably a vocal, monophonic, melodic idiom to which any 'accompaniment' is foreign and would ineluctably alter the very nature of the chant.

Going a little further into the mediaval era we may want to insist that 'times change' and that chant was accompanied by bells, vielles, organs, harps, and whatnot in the later middle ages, and, therefore (not a non-convincing non sequitur) it's alright to accompany it now with whatever I wish to accompany it with (especially so-and-so's accompaniments, which I really really like).

Proceeding into the renaissance, we find that chant was altered rhythmically, the melodies altered and abridged, therefore (again, not necessarily a sequitur) it's alright to perform it according to my own twist.

A little further on the route to modern times we note that chant was accompanied by serpents and other things, that sharps and flats were inserted to mask the modal character and make the chant more 'modern', therefore (another non sequitur) it's alright to accompany chant with the organ arrangements that I really love to play, plus, I just like the way it sounds so don't bother me with the facts.

In short, there may be, and likely is, a valid paradigm to be found in how chant was probably performed in its nascent periods. For some of us this represents a timeless example of what chant, in its objective essence, is. For others, it's a 'so what'.

For others, this cramps their style and their preferences. They will, like the late mediaevals, the baroque modernists, and the modern practicalists, perform it the way they wish. There are no academic principles here. They will accompany their chant because they like it that way, and accompanying it with their favoured accompaniment is a pleasurable experience to them. Whether doing so is objectively 'correct' or not is not a relevant matter. They like it. Further, one needs to be cautious about entering that word 'correct' into play. No one, of course, wishes not to be 'correct', so there becomes an immediately perceived need to qualify what is said to be correct, or to abolish altogether the concept that a 'correct' paradigm in light of which all else is a departure of questionable validity even exists. Of course, we will graciously admit that these 'departures' exhibit their own self-referential validity, but that is not enough. The Paradigm must at all costs be utterly discredited. After all, who were these Frankish scholars? What could a fourth century cantor know about chant? Surely they aren't to be taken seriously in this day and time. A paradigm cannot be allowed, for it, by its very nature, is like a ray of light that puts all else in the shade. We mustn't have that.

So, we have true chant. Then we have some things that we do to it. We have serpentine chant, We have accompanied chant. We have French plein-chant musical, we have Medicean chant, we have a variety of historical and dated 'methods', and so forth. Any given person will, ultimately do it according to one of the above, or his own genie. Any notion of one correct (or likely correct) manner is of no interest and will be shot down with this and that relativistic argument. Indeed, like every good relativist, they will insist that there is, nor can be, any verifiable objective paradigm.

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It sometimes seems that those (and, this is not an attack on them or their preferences - just a neutral observation) who are enthusiastic apologists for accompanied chant really cannot conceive of unaccompanied chant as anything other than missing something that they listen for and enjoy playing more than the chant itself. It is the relationship of this or that accompaniment to the chant that fascinates. If it is absent, well, there's nothing there but plain old chant - which needs to have an interesting accompaniment. There seems to be sort of a chant sub-culture in which the accompaniments of this or that person are weighed in relationship to one another, or prized because they exhibit a style which derives from particular idioms, say Debussy, etc. I have seen examples of this, a genre which is quite excitingly conversed about by accompanied-chant afficianados. (I'm really not judging or belittling - but it seems to me that, questions of paradigmatical origins aside, with some, the accompaniment is the thrilling aspect.)

One hears the defensive mantra that 'well, if you do it right ('right' naturally being the way they do it) it doesn't distract from the chant, it only keeps people on pitch and you don't really notice it etc., etc.'. Well, of course 'you' do notice it, which is the whole point. You can't not notice it. It's there to be noticed, else there would be no need, real or perceived, for it to be there. Something foreign is being added to the chant, something which the chanters inevitably follow, something which by its very nature destroys the chant's native spontaneous rhythmic vitality. An harmonic structure is being imposed upon it which changes its character, performance, and flow - which makes it 'not exactly chant'.

But, one cannot but say that this is no worse than what Palestrina did to chant. No worse than serpent-accompanied chant. No worse than what Mme Ward did to chant. It's not worse than any of these. It represents another spectrum of chant performance as it has unfolded through history. But. (Again, but!) All of them are shadows and treatments and mistreatments of the pure vocal rather oriental incantations of the early highly skilled cantors. And, no, CharlesW - like it or not, this is not all naught but speculation. This paradigm hasn't shifted. It has only been rediscovered.

For others, this cramps their style and their preferences. They will, like the late mediaevals, the baroque modernists, and the modern practicalists, perform it the way they wish. There are no academic principals here

You are quite correct. There are no academic principles (hopefully, not principals) here. It is all speculation.

Indeed, like every good relativist, they will insist that there is no verifiable objective paradigm.

That paradigm has shifted more often than a politician running for office. LOL.

I have been to a Latin OF this summer in The Hague, NL, and they did it the same way I am accustomed to from a diocesan TLM: Propers unaccompanied, Ordinary accompanied by organ.

MJO is correct about training/singing Chant without organ. I'm not quite as pure as he is: I'll use the organ for giving a pitch (usually an open 4th or 5th with do at the bottom) or for demonstrating a difficult passage.

Choirs live up to expectations.

Unaccompanied music can grate on the ears when there is nothing else.

One must not lose the sense of irony, for our Orthodox brother speaks ill of unaccompanied music "when there is nothing else".

Russian Orthodox church music, as I hear it, is polyphonic and characterized by a strong base component, unlike Gregorian which is monophonic and, in the "good old days" was often pitched at the top of the singers register, at least in my experience. Unaccompanied Gregorian from the congregation can certainly grate

I, for example, like Palestrina. But I don't want to hear him every week.

That's why God gave us Byrd and Victoria! I don't blame you one bit for using the organ to accompany your singers. But, it doesn't change the fact that the Church prefers a capella singing. That said, if the singing would be worse without the organ than with it, use it by all means!

...compliments the voices and simply sounds better.

Unaccompanied music can grate on the ears...

Really, Charles -
Boldly spoken but subjective assertions.
Pure speculation!
This paradigm shifts as the sands of the Sahara.

Ah, Sowerby!
I suppose that it seems de rigeuer for any Episcopalian (current or ex-) to be enthralled with his music.
However -
I've never really been a fan of his.
Many there are, though, and ardent, too!
Of course, as you say, this is all speculative and, at any rate, highly subjective.

(Speaking of speculative, on which you are an authority, there are those who would assert that we, ourselves and all the universe, are speculative and may not exist actually at all. But, of course, that is pure speculation on their part.)

But you have mass, correct? A sign of existence. Are you representative of those who do exist, or speculatively exist? Can I speculate on your mass without implying weight? Inquiring minds want to know!

I don't speculate, simply state what I am doing. Those who do otherwise are free to do so with my compliments. But just because they do it, doesn't mean I have to.

Steve is certainly right about the Europeans! Yes, indeed! They accompany chant at Notre Dame, Paris, with full organ plenum, reeds and all. It's quite a noise. Nothing there to learn from or emulate. There is much about which the Europeans (disappointingly) are poor examples. This is one of them.

There is chant.
And then there are things people do with or to chant.
I don't belittle them for what they do.
They have Palestrina himself and the serpentists as exemplars.
I do object that they carry on as though what they do is ideal and paradigmatic.
No, it isn't.

Having had the experience of working for a native Frenchman priest, it is true that they have some very odd ideas of praxis. Not only "odd," but AT odds with Roman directives. They do love them some organ noise.