Is there a choral setting of the Missal chants in which the choir supports and adds something to the chanting of the people? Something with passages in fauxbourdon or quasi-descants at cadential points? I've googled every combination of terms I could think of, and found Noel Jones's fine SAB setting, which I will use in the future when we need a cap. singing, but I am wondering if something exists that will give a bit more sparkle, without disrupting the singing of the congregation?
I'll write my own someday, but I'm happy to buy something if it already exists.
In my parish, our only English setting of the ordinary of the Mass (Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, Agnus) is the Roman Missal chants. Mass VIII or IX are used once or twice a month on holy days or Masses of Our Lady when there is a small enough crowd for each person to have a Gregorian Missal, or when there is an all-inclusive leaflet printed, but Sunday after Sunday is the Missal chants.
For Easter, we are going with the English; it is in the hymnals and missalettes (therefore no leaflet for the high mass to lay out and pick up between the 999 other low masses) and so ingrained in the collective memory that the singing is tremendously strong (i.e. no cantor, minimal organ) and will 1) let the people sing the Gloria for the first time in months and 2) demonstrate to the visiting CEOs that this is a parish where everyone sings and is happy to be in church. Not my call, but I see the advantages of this.
There is something for the missal chants at least in Latin. They used it when the pope was just in Philly, it’s in the Cathedral series, edited by John Romeri
Have you thought about doing the embellishments in Latin? Without addressing the copyright issues, you could probably do the Romeri with choir in Latin and congregation in ICEL English. If you do a Gregorian Great Amen, you could append this onto the end of it: http://www1.cpdl.org/wiki/images/1/11/Ws-pra-amen.pdf Other ideas might to have your choir do a polyphonic Hosanna, repeating that sung by the congregation. You could also have the choir do a polyphonic Agnus Dei as a repeat of one of the verses. Just thoughts.
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