Technically, you're asking what I heard on Gaudete Sunday, which totally opens me up to brag about my personal life: I'm accompanying a choir in a large youth theater program, and playing a short recital beforehand. All this is at an old theater with a beautiful 1927 Casavant which is just now starting to be restored! The organ is incredible, and has been left in disrepair until recently. Picture: http://photos-d.ak.fbcdn.net/photos-ak-snc1/v1287/70/38/15304316/n15304316_32128211_4703.jpg

So what I'm hearing is:
Verdi - Grand Marche from Aida (Oxford Wedding Book)
Vierne - Berceuse
Rheinberger - Fughetta in Ab
Verdi - Recordare fr. Requiem
Handel - Pastoral Symphony
Boellmann - Minuet fr. Suite Gothique
(If the crowd really loves the organ, I'll replace the last two with Widor's Finale from Symphonie VI)

My fortune doesn't end there, nor does the connection with Advent III. Since I'm unemployed, I'll be going to a major historic church in the area to pick up my music for their orchestral EF Midnight Mass of the Nativity! Gaudete indeed!

That organ has to be a beautiful instrument, given its builder and vintage. It is wonderful that it is being restored. I don't use organ much except for hymns and communion cover during Advent. But I am opening Midnight Mass with a prelude, "Joseph Est Bien Marie" by Balbastre and ending with the "March from the 3rd Organ Symphony" by Widor on a 1953 Schantz. I have a 30-minute choral concert before the mass and will be doing "And the Glory of the Lord" at offertory with a few French Noels sprinkled in at various time. I

I heard "Cry of the Poor" and "People look East" sung by a cantor and no one else, even though the church had a couple hundred people. When the Lord's prayer was chanted, however, I finally heard just about everyone sing. Says something, doesn't it?

Where I'm organist, we had:

10 a.m. (pick-up youth choir)
On Jordan's Bank - Entrance
Lo, How A Rose - Offertory
O Come, O Come, Emmanuel and O Lord, I am not worthy - Communion
Immaculate Mary - Recessional

12 p.m. (choir)
O Come, O Come - Entrance
Lo, How a Rose - Offertory
Comfort Ye from The Messiah - Communion solo followed by
The Spirit of God is Upon Me (Deiss)
On Jordan's Bank - Recessional

Both Masses used The People's Mass for the ordinary and Respond & Acclaim for Psalm and Alleluia.

And we did have rose colored vestments for the celebrant

St. Rose de Viterbo, Longview, WA

Introit - To you O god I lift up my soul - Bob Hurd
Kyrie - spoken
Gradual (R.P.)- Magnificat, Owen Alstott, setting "R&A"
Alleluia - Owen Alstott, setting "R&A"
Creed - spoken
Offertory - Save us O Lord, Bob Dufford, SJ
Sanctus - St. Louis Jesuits Mass
Memorial Acclamation D - SLJ Mass
Agnus Dei - Dan Schutte SLJ Mass
Communio - Christ Be our Light, Bernadette Farrell
Recessional - Alleluia hurry the Lord is Near - Ernest Sands

Bach for prelude, Gaudete introit by Richard Rice, psalm tone Psalm with choral versus, Alma Redemptoris solemn chant and Guerrero, Mass XVII, Dicite for communion followed by Tallis Gloria patri, Jubilate Deo by di Lasso, and finally a hymn for recessing: O Come Divine Messiah. It was a good day!

Gaudete Introit
Alma Redemptoris Mater Offertory
O Come Divine Messiah Offertory
Sanctus XVIII
Our Father (chanted in English)
Agnus Dei XVIII
Dominus dabit (Communion -- I know wrong week, but my schola knows it)
Veni Emmanuel (verses 4-5 Latin and English)

We also had a re-enactment of St. Juan Diego and Our Lady of Guadalupe, plus Matachine dancers before our introit! We had a big crowd today...

Holy Rosary Chapel at St. Vincent's, San Rafael, California
12:15PM Latin Mass (Extraordinary Form, 1962)
(Archdiocese of San Francisco)

Processional: O Come, O Come Emmanuel/arr. Mary Berry
Sprinkling: Asperges me (Chant)
Introit: Gaudete (Chant Proper) -- Men's Schola
Kyrie: Mass XVII (Chant Ordinary)
Gradual/Alleluia: Rossini Psalm Tone -- Men's Schola
Credo: Credo III (Chant Ordinary)
Offertory: Benedixisti Domine (Chant Proper) 2 Cantors
Hymn: Rorate Caeli (Christopher Tye) with Chant Verses -- Mixed Choir/Men's Schola
Sanctus: Mass XVII (Chant Ordinary)
Agnus Dei: Mass XVII (Chant Ordinary)
Communion: Dicite pusillanimes (Chant Proper) -- Men's Schola
(with Rice/Communio Psalm Tone Verses)
Motet: Ave Vera Virginitas (Josquin de Pres) -- Mixed Choir
Recessional: On Jordan's Bank (Praetorius)

Janice Clark, Music Director

Note the above: Four English hymns in the EF. I've rarely seen a better illustration that a change of Missals alone is not the answer to the musical crisis in the Catholic Church.

I was privileged to hear a commendable rendition (despite the conductor, who was me) of my newly composed Missa in Tempus Adventus, sung by the choir of St. John the Beloved Church, McLean, Virginia, with organist Mary Catherine Levri. The three movements use various familiar Advent tunes (Veni Emmanuel for the Kyrie, Rorate caeli for the Sanctus and Benedictus, and Creator alme for the Agnus Dei). Some last minute rethinking saved the Agnus from dire straights (which it pays to be flexible), and the whole seemed well received. Pastor Franklyn McAfee is a rare giant as a champion of choral music at Mass, and along with Director David Lang, continues to be the great patron of this living composer.

What was the reality of the preconcilar period? (I wasn't there yet) Does EF these day allow people at the pew sing the reponses? Because I noticed some people are trying to respond and most don't. Is all the singing still done by schola only? Is it a part of the problem?

Mia, in our chapel the congregation sings all the responses with the server. They even sing the Kyrie in alternatim with the schola if they know it (which is often), and they always sing Credo (III) with full voice. I suppose that as far as EF congregations go, they are very "active" externally. I would even go further and say that, given that their interior participation also appears to be highly intense, their overall participation in the Mass is the most actuosa that I've ever seen.

Ninety percent of them are under 40 years of age.

It is, if you like, a kind of springtime.

Gavin

I suspect your characterization is, as usual, spot-on.

And kudos to Steve for introducing some fine hymnody into that Low Mass. I always say, if you're going to do hymns, make sure you do the good ones.

EDIT: getting back on track, Steve (and others), a thought occurred to me as to a good resource for hymns for the EF Mass: The Hymnal 1940. The anglican (and Lutheran) one-year calendars are nearly identical to the EF calendar, so why not use those hymn suggestions where the days' readings are close or identical?

I have my own "hermeneutic of nothing really changes", whereby I've found that the pre-Vatican II experience mirrored our own times more than we think.

Heh, but this is not to say one must therefore raise one's eyes piously to heav'n and steel oneself to despair whilst on earth.

Although I was in a cafe' yesterday after the morning's Mass, and sitting next to me was a table of late fiftysomethings discussing liturgy as if they get to invent it all themselves, from scratch, every time! No wonder so many Masses sound like birthday parties and variety shows. They all derive from the same mixture of parental anxiety and modernist ennui.

I am speaking off the cuff here.

Ours is a simple schola with no pretensions. We work hard to sing well and sensitively in perfect unison, and that is nearly task enough, and very satisfying. What more does the Mass need? Well, more beauty is always good, and it surprises me how little one needs to add to the basic foundation of chant to bring the beauty out. You see, our chapel has no organ (instead, a piano and a djembe). Our choral resources are, as yet, few. But the simple descant we sang after the offertory proper came off beautifully -- we sang it with very good tuning and quickly fell into a hypnotic rhythm -- and afterwards, a woman came up to me with bright eyes and said, "WHAT did you all sing for the offertory? It was just lovely!"

Fortunately, I could say it was an adapted cantorale from a medieval manuscript in Montserrat, which seemed to puzzle her pleasantly, but the point is that we could've done no simpler non-unison singing. A drone and descant is as simple as you can get, and yet -- and yet! -- because monody was the foundation of everything, that initial split of voices into polyphony struck this woman as electrifying and beautiful.

If we do simple, beautiful things very, very well, the effect exceeds the means taken to achieve it. Less can be more. It all depends on what the steady-state, the ground-state, of the Mass's music is. Monody allows you to make small additions and generate, I believe, pretty impressive effects. Why more people don't take advantage of this is beyond me.

Being a DM in your average parish would drive me insane. I felt like telling that group of fiftysomethings, "You know, it sounds like you're having fun, but you don't have to reinvent basic agriculture. Our predecessors in the Church have provided us with a magnificent basis from which to work. It's all there, waiting for seeds to be planted in it."

Caveat: if our chapel had an organ, that would change things. The perception of what constitute the ground-state of music at the Mass would change.

Saint Mary’s Parish, Visalia, California
Order of Music-Dec.14, 2008
3rd Sunday, Advent
S/Schola; E/Ensemble

Introit Antiphon SE /Rejoice in the Lord always (American Gradual*)

Entrance: S PEOPLE, LOOK EAST (Bensançon)
E READY THE WAY 435 (B.Hurd)

Opening Rites:S Kyrie-plainsong
E Kyrie (New Danish Amen Mass-Culbreth)

Responsorial:SE Respond & Acclaim

Gospel Accl.:S plainsong “Alleluia”modeVI
E Alleluia (New Danish Amen Mass-Culbreth)

Offertory: S CREATOR OF THE STARS/CONDITOR ALME SIDERUM
E HOLY IS HIS NAME (Talbot)

Eucharistic Accl.: S Holy Family Mass (Schiavone)
E Holy/Christ/ Amen /Lamb (New Danish Amen Mass-Culbreth)

Communion Procession: SE Antiphon: Dicite: Pusillanimes/Say to those….(American Gradual)
SE CHRIST, CIRCLE ‘ROUND US (Schutte/Salve Regina)

Communion Anthem: S ADVENT ANTHEM (text: Rosetti/setting: D. Brooks-Davies)
E BEYOND THE MOON AND STARS(Schutte)

Recessional:S ON JORDAN’S BANK (Winchester new)
E MARANATHA! COME LORD JESUS (Sullivan-Whitaker)

We have two regular EF Mass locations in this area. At my main Mass, the people do respond, either said or sung, to all but the Prayers at the Foot, and the Orate fratres at the Offertory. At the other, the congregation DOES say it all - yes, even the Prayers at the Foot! At our occasional High Masses, no matter what level of solemnity, the congregation is intended to sing all the responses with the choir. But the choir then sings the Ordinary, and a smaller group the Propers. This even includes our annual All Souls' Faure' "Requiem". I have never been to a High Mass where the congregation did not sing these responses. But, of course, it helps if they are printed in the worship aid!!!

Our Lady of Lourdes, California City, CA

Entrance: English translation of proper Gregorian Introit (Phil 4:4-5, Ps 85:2 with Doxology); antiphon sung to Byzantine chant tone, verse and Doxology to Tone VIF

Communion (offertory omitted at pastor's request): "O Lord of Light"

Recessional: "O Come, Divine Messiah," verse 3 (verses 1 and 2 sung for 1st and 2nd Sundays of Advent, respectively)