St Mary's Cathedral, Sydney -

Ponitfical Masses
Easter Day, 2016
Christmas at Midnight, 2015

I happened upon this cathedral whilst going here and there on youtube this afternoon. It was quite surprising, and quite a different aesthetic than one ordinarily expects under the heel of chic American liturgists.

The cathedral has an excellent choir of men and boys and all the music was commendable.
At both of the masses I observed the propers, with the glaring omission of the offertory antiphon, were sung, some in Latin to the Gregorian music, and others in very nice choral settings. Even the alleluya and verse were Gregorian in Latin.

For Easter Day the gradual (not the resp ps) was sung in English to sort of an elaborated style of Anglican chant setting which had something of that Monteverdian ceremonial feel to it.

Kyrie and Gloria were Mozart
The Gregorian Vidi aquam was sung

Offertory Anthem was (disappointingly) Handel's Hallelujah Chorus, done with a grace that made it one of the most pleasing performances of it that I've ever heard. While this was really nice in an of itself, its placement in liturgy was rather strange - I would say a cantus alius non aptus.

The organ played on all the chant, and did so very loudly much of the time. This seems to me a rather cruel butchery of what Gregorian chant actually is.

All the dialogue, collects were sung.
The Lesson and the Epistle (disappointingly) were spoken, while the gospel was sung to the tone for the prophecy!, with the curious delivery of one sentence which was not a question being sung to the interrogation formula.

The universal prayers were not sung - another disappointment in a liturgy that had so much good about it.

There were lots of dalmatics and tunicles, and profuse smoke, in the sanctuary.

All in all, it was beautiful and carried out with not a single announcement or non-ritual comment of any kind. The people sang their parts strictly on cue from the organ and choir. (How refreshing!!!)

If one were to fault anything other than that the first two readings and the univ. prayers weren't sung (and the gospel being sung to the prophecy tone), it would be the lack of unity in the variety of music - Latin Gregorian introits, English non-Gregorian gradual, no offertory at all, Mozart kyrie & Gloria, the funerary mass XVIII Sanctus (for Easter, yet!) and so forth. Plus this in Latin and that in English. Added together this regimen (which seems all-too-common in Catholic liturgy) results in a pastiche which lacks any aesthetic coherence or continuity at all. But at least! at the micro level each and every thing was, in itself, good!

A chic American liturgist would have had apoplexy screeching that 'the people' had nothing to do. (Let them screech - but pay them no mind!) In fact, the people didn't, except for the dialogue. The choir sang propers and ordinary and there were no hymns. But one observed that the standing-room-only congregation in this very large neo-gothic church were rapt in the beauty of their Easter offering and in the beauty of their choir. No one could have left unfulfilled.

For the Midnight Christ Mass the principle difference was the carol singing before mass, the singing of Irby in procession before the Introit was sung. Instead of the gradual the resp ps was sung to a rich and rhythmic choral setting with the people singing the responsory (to full organ). Stille nacht was sung during communions, and Adeste fideles at the dismissal.

All told, it is refreshing to know that there are places here and there at which Catholic liturgy is not a lost cause.

Look up St Mary's Cathedral, Sydney on youtube and be pleased. The choir of men and boys are superb. And, the cathedral actually has a choir school! (Oh, and one might add that, as choirmasters of men and boys choirs go, this one seems rather excited, almost boisterous - but the result is awfully good.)