This thread has come off the rails. On Thanksgiving.
How'd we all like to be cantors in Syria or Iraq? No thanks.

Never realized I should be grateful that the priests I cantor for don't talk about me during their homilies...yikes!

Kyle -
Considering what you have to do and put up with, why do you 'serve' in that role at that church?
Why do you submit to being humiliated, during mass yet!, by a priest-nut.
Why do you even go to that church?

The comments reveal the problem - - as usual. There's something weird about what priests think is musically ideal. How to fix it? Presumably most American bishops are equally misled.

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.

And you come to this conclusion exactly how?

Interesting thread. At my Cathedral where I’m the DM, we celebrate mass in 3 languages {3 in English, 4 in Spanish, 1 in Vietnamese) as well as an EF mass with a small schola. 2 of our Spanish masses utilize organ and cantor. Due to the holiday weekend, both my Hispanic cantors took this Sunday off, leaving me to sing and play. I simply sang and played the psalm and gospel acclamation, and left the congregation without a cantor for the hymns and Ordinary. Surprise, surprise...they did just fine on their own. (And coincidentally, we did a couple of pieces with Fr. Kirsman’s name on the credits). I’m also fond of muting the cantor microphone on hymns and the Ordinary to gauge how the congregation sings without an amplified voice...I do this sometimes as my singers forget what I tell them their first job is as cantors, “use your ears and listen.” Again, they usually do just fine, but not always. Having been raised Protestant, I’ve always been dumbfounded about this need for a cantor. Even last week, someone complained about not hearing the cantor...at the mass with the cathedral choir. Um, well you see, there is no cantor when the choir is present. The complainer was perplexed. We also use service leaflets with all the music in them, so no announcing hymns at all.

Surprise, surprise...they did just fine on their own.

I have had Sundays when the cantor was ill and I couldn't get a replacement at the last minute. I wouldn't try singing psalms or responses since my voice decided it had had enough some many years ago. The pastor started the entrance hymn and the congregation joined in. The psalm was read and the pastor sang the Gospel Acclamation without accompaniment. I gave the usual introductions to the parts of the Ordinary and the congregation came in without hesitation. Having a cantor helps but life and mass can go on without one.

I gave the usual introductions ... and the congregation came in without hesitation.
AND
you can feel the confusion in the air... "do we not sing this verse?

Surely the congregation needs to know what is expected of it, and not letting them know is as disastrous as not letting the choir know. But whether you need a conductor, a cantor, the celebrant (or deacon), an organist, or just routine habit, depends on circumstances.

.

I once knew a pastor (back around the time of The Council) who on one or two occasions ordered the ushers to lock the doors so that no one could leave before the mass had ended. I remember nurturing a certain Schadenfreud over their well-deserved frustration.

I was, when I first really encountered Catholic culture (such as it is), absolutely shocked that people would come to church (in everyday casual costume, yet!) and leave before it was over. This only reinforced my Episcopalian righteous indignation. (Ha! and to think that they say WE aren't Catholic!?) Leaving church before the liturgy has ended is unthinkable, pitiful, sad - and callous.

I have not to this day overcome my utter bewilderment at those who actually walk out the door right after having received their Lord. And to think that something so wretched as a 'game' would detemine when or whether one went to mass.

How'd we all like to be cantors in Syria or Iraq? No thanks.

I dunno - the Muslims seem to have the right idea. The muezzin can chant from the relative safety of the minaret, far from the prying eyes of any clergy . . .

" It's one of the few instances where a glare of righteous indignation feels perfectly right."

Lost verse: Luke 18:13b - He also said, ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people: thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even like this Pharisee."

There's nothing in the New Testament that indicates he was ever baptized!

Unless I'm mistaken, there is nothing definitive about any of the apostles being baptized by Jesus... there is a reference to baptism in the Jordan by John (and Judas would have been involved in that). Regardless, are we truly sola scriptura now?

Noel,

It's true that a spoken Mass without any music is still valid. Nevertheless, it is fitting and even desirable to have the proper music sung and played at Mass.

I'll go out on a limb, at the risk of offending some here: Low Mass has a place within the Church's liturgical sphere, in part to allow the musicians to remember their proper place and the proper focus of the liturgy itself. [Hint: the Mass isn't chorocentric].

On the other hand, Noel, the proper place for the Guitar Mass is.......oblivion.

Jackson,

I'm trying to find the right word, without resorting to either a German compound or a sheer neologism.

Hmmm. I think "normative" might depend on the period of Church history. The Missa Cantata (for example) didn't exist until the 17th century. What is certainly true for the Tridentine Mass is that the distinctions (Low, Sung, Solemn, etc.) connote ever-increasing solemnity, and therefore ever-increasing degrees of honor and glory that are, inherently, rendered to God - hence the importance of the elevated forms of Mass when circumstances permit.

Nowadays, Roman rite priests have the singular distinction of not even being taught to sing (much less be required to sing) what for half the church's history was a cultural and ecclesiastical given - the totally sung mass.

Well said.

Noel,

Don't put words in my mouth. The Gloria is proper to Mass. It belongs there. It isn't Proper to the day, but that's not what I said.

Chant is proper to the Mass. Polyphony is very much at home at Mass.
Guitars and microphones are neither proper to the building nor the action taking place there.

MJO - I totally agree. Incardination - When reading your above post, I get the feeling that I am hearing possibly the spirit of the "Screw Tape Letters." I hope not and please forgive me if I get that feeling. CharlesW - I love spending time watching, hearing and enjoying Russian Orthodox liturgies and the glorious music and GREAT singing not only of the choir but clergy too on youtube.

Interesting discussion. I won't take offense at the guitar comments, as I said in a different discussion, my husband accompanies me on very tasteful classical-style guitar arrangements (NEVER ching-a-ching-a-ching-a). We were asked by the previous pastor to provide music at Mass when our parish was between organists. We know our role is to focus on the Mass not detract from it. My question, when the pews are full of missals which contain mostly dreadful hymns that are poorly composed or full of "humanistic" lyrics or both, and the people have been trained to expect that, how do you move to something better?

Second, our new pastor came from a big city parish and would like a choir to sing each week in addition to preparing music for Midnight Mass and the Triduum. What we are doing now is having a small choir made up primarily of those who are cantors at other Masses sing as a choir at the first Mass of each month and this means we are attending 2 Masses on the weekend when we sing as a choir. Our parish isn't big enough to field a real choir that sings in 3 or 4 parts every week. Managing expectations of what is realistic is challenging and sometimes I am not sure our pastor would be able to tell if we just had "the unison choir." At that point all you have done is collected the singers up in the choir loft.

Third, do all Masses have to be the same musically? Mass isn't about any particular style of music it's about worship. Can't we offer a variety of levels/styles of music in the Masses on Sunday and let people find the one which leads them to the best and deepest worship? However, I am not saying things that are truly incorrect should be permitted at Mass.

KoS, I apologize for being obtuse. I presume you don't mean to paint me as a minion of Satan :) but any other reference is unfortunately lost on me. I was never a big fan of CS Lewis and consequently never read the book. Can you perhaps clarify? I promise not be be offended even it was intended as an insult, gentle or otherwise.

MJO, I always respect and value your opinion even where I disagree. In this case, I don't know that our apparent disagreement is more than a nuance of understanding.

...need to accustom ourselves to the circumstance that what has been Normative historically will not likely become so again (even though it is implied and implicit in the verba of Vatican II). This is sad. One can even rationally think it evidence of a gross spiritual sickness. But, we are up against a culture that has destroyed its true self; a thing which is part and parcel of the general suicide of Western Civilisation.

Perhaps Don Quixote would have been a better comparison than Screwtape (but I'll wait for KoS to clarify). I don't believe I have false illusions about what will be "normative" in the future, or the state of the Church today... but my job is not to assess how I think the battle is going, my job is merely to fight the fight to the best of my ability and with the tools at my disposal. In my case, that means as a liturgical musician.

Mme and I had a brief conversation in another thread along the same lines - i.e. the value of the Liturgy regardless of outward form; regardless of attendance. From my perspective, the Liturgy is that body of worship, following rules (i.e. rubrics) identified in "liturgical books", as offered by one authorized to act on behalf of the Church. This body of worship is always offered in the name of; with the voice of; and on behalf of the Universal Church.

What this means is that the cleric in major orders (the authorized minister in this case) who reads his breviary is not offering a personal prayer to God. He is praying in the name of; with the voice of; and on behalf of ALL members of the Universal Church - Church Militant, Church Suffering, Church Triumphant. The priest who celebrates a private Mass is not offering a private act of worship - he is offering a sacrifice in the name of; with the voice of; and on behalf of ALL members of the Universal Church.

The intrinsic worth of these liturgical offerings is NO DIFFERENT than the intrinsic worth of the corresponding conventual liturgical offering in the Cathedral church. A Mass offered privately is no less a Sacrifice than the Mass offered with 1,000 in attendance and sung by the choir. Both are part of that body of worship of the Universal Church. Both are capable of conferring an INFINITE amount of grace. Both are true re-enactments of Calvary.

The inherent value of the Liturgy is not found in the beauty of the music any more than it is found in the holiness of the celebrant or the number of people in attendance. These characteristics (and others besides) are accidental to the act of worship, itself.

I understand the idea of progressive solemnity as the Consilium's attempt to move parishes from predominantly read Masses to sung Masses. Bugnini's account of the first demonstration of the new liturgy 'the Missa Normativa' p 349, starts:

The Mass was to be thought of as a Sunday Mass in a parish church, with the participation of a congregation, a small choir, a lector, a cantor, and two servers

He admits it was a flop, and gives a number of excuses about the venue (the Sistine Chapel) and congregation (high church dignitaries). But concludes in a footnote by remarking the negative attitude of the English speaking hierarchs

it was claimed that people in the English-speaking world do not sing in church * and that the normative Mass should therefore be a read Mass

With an aside at * :- 'the reference seems to have been solely to Catholic churches'
FWIW Bugnini sees the failure to embed chant in Latin into parish practice as largely due to obstruction by musicians concerned not to weaken the full glories of chant and polyphony by permitting any alternatives.

FWIW Bugnini sees the failure to embed chant in Latin into parish practice as largely due to obstruction by musicians concerned not to weaken the full glories of chant and polyphony by permitting any alternatives.

Should there be a 'the' after musicians and/or a comma after concerned? I.e. did Bugnini see obstruction by the musicians concerned (i.e. by the English speaking musicians) or did he see the obstruction by musicians because they were concerned that they did not weaken the full glories of chant and polyphony by permitting any alternatives? Confusing paragraph (at least to me.)

The 'you mustn't sing chant but in Latin' syndrome is alive and well yet today. We still have very popular books of chant (some under the auspices of the presumably academically and liturgically august Church Music Association of America) which, while they could just as easily provide verse translations of their verse Latin texts (and even singable prose ones for their prose texts), resolutely and with bald face provide literarily and musically worthless prose translations, just to assure that they may not be sung. The given excuse for this idiocy is that the proffered translations are more literal. That they may be, but as translation they are child's play, as literature they are worthless and utterly artless. Only Catholics do this. No translation at all would be more honest - and more artful.

from the very earliest witnesses of such things, the normative (and normal!) practice was for the mass to be sung, all of it, from the first to the last syllables.

But not by a choir, and not polyphonically, at least until the--what?--mid-11th century. Thus, should we demand that the priest and people sing psalms and acclamations is based on earliest praxis?

But later, and licit, praxis was polyphonic, or spoken. And the Missa Cantata was developed, too.

So many choices, so little time.