If you have capable cantors, there is another solution to the desire to have the people singing propers. As now structured they consist of antiphons and psalm verses, so your cantor can tackle the complex antiphon, and let the congregation sing the psalm verses. Provided you choose the appropriate mode, if you are using English it is possible to choose a genre, GR, GS, Anglican, Bevenot, Gelineau, ..., which suits the congregation. Purists might not like it, but I can't see anything in GIRM that would prohibit it, I would say you are simply treating the whole congregation as the schola.

I think that this pernicious notion that chant and other music of our heritage is beyond the 'common man', that 'modern' Catholics no longer identify with it, that it is foreign and strange to most Catholics because of and since Vatican II, and on and on, is a convenient lie concocted by people who (obviously) have banished our heritage in music from ordinary usage and have seen to it that it is perceived to be a relic of the past.

Even the average non-Catholic man or woman knows that chant and polyphony is Catholic when they hear it. So does the average Catholic, who has been taught, who has had it drummed into him and her, that these things are relics of the past and no longer speak to us, are foreign to us, and anyway, we can't learn them. This is absolutely false.

Even the illiterate peasant of the middle ages knew the chants that he heard the monks sing. This average peasant or townsman did in fact have a certain knowledge of the chants of feast days and ritual occasions throughout the year. Sundays were known by the common man by their introits. Latin and chant often found themselves mirrored in folk song and seasonal carol. If a mediaeval person could have this cultural grasp of our heritage, then certainly the oh-so-advanced and educated (or even uneducated) modern person could do likewise. We are being fed deliberate lies by a coterie whose burning desire is the banishment of our heritage and will not be deterred in their efforts to dumb our people down to their own level. We must not let them succeed. Chant and our musical heritage is for all to love and to sing as they are able.

Credo III is not easy. It has an unusually wide (nearly an octave and a half) tessitura. It has intervals and neumatics that are challenging. It is not easy. We introduced it at Walsingham last summer. You should hear our three hundred people at high mass singing it now. You would think that you were hearing a choir of Benedictine monks. (We also sing an Englished version of the cum jubilo mass on Marian feasts.) Chant is beyond Catholics. They can't sing chant. That is a pernicious lie! Don't believe it and don't repeat it!

I was 13 in 1960, heard the music firsthand, and most have no idea how bad it was. There wasn't much golden about it, with sappy Marian hymns, and Montani arrangements out the wazoo.

We're the same age. Sorry your parish sucked. Mine didn't (except for the sappy Marian hymns used by the school music teacher, a lovely soul with absolutely no taste.) No Montani, chant done right, good++ choir, 25 voices, very good selection of motets.

seeking the participation of the faithful

The theological definition of "participation" is 'conforming oneself to Christ in self-sacrifice.' Try running that past your liturgy committee, or even the pastor. In all likelihood, none of them EVER heard that definition.

But it resolves a lot of questions about "singing," ain'a?

I have never played for a 'four hymn sandwich'. I have played and directed at many masses which were graced with three or four hymns, but these masses were not 'hymn sandwiches'. The very thought is a denigration of my offering of music and the very value of the mass itself. And, it suggests one who does not take his or her work seriously. Of course, one chooses genuine hymnody of past and present, hymnody whose texts are worthy as literature, and music that deserves to be heard and offered. A mass with hymnody is a thing with its own particular beauty, and it is quite legitimate. So, if you use hymnody in your parish, choose genuine hymns, play them well, and be sure that they make sense with the lectionary. Don't be one of those silly adolescent people who play for a 'four hymn sandwich'. This is a very stale signifer which is neither cute nor smart.

Of course we all would wish for the mass to be graced with the propers which are inherent in it. Unfortunately, and sadly, these are out of favour with the vast majority of our men in holy orders (as well as too many men and women who direct our music) and aren't likely soon to become general or normal - though they are, technically, 'normative'. We would all wish to wake up tomorrow in a world in which a proper-less mass was a strange curiosity, but it isn't likely that we will.

Which means that hymnody is here to stay in the Catholic Church, and the wise and creative ones among us will make a beautiful thing out of it. There is no stigma attached to hymnody. It is nothing to be embarrassed about or ashamed of - providing that what one is referencing is genuine hymnody, is played well, and sung well. And while we perform hymnody well we can continue to work with patient, respectful intelligence for the returning of the propers to their rightful place. Someone who is always talking about a 'four hymn sandwich' is someone not to take very seriously.

Ideally we would have only the propers to grace the Roman rite.
Secondly we might settle for propers and hymnody.
Thirdly we might (have to) settle for hymnody only.
All three are, unfortunately, valid choices for the OF of the Roman rite at this point in history.

(In the Ordinariate Use the following is normative: 1) Processional hymn followed by introit, 2) Psalm in directum to Anglican chant, 3) Alleluya and Verse from AUG, 4) Offertory Antiphon followed by anthem, 5) Communion Antiphon followed by anthem and hymn.)

Actually, I'm the only good-looking man.

Since human beings are made up of both body and soul, the actuosa participatio of human persons is necessarily internal as well as external: the interior element is the "heart" of the matter, which must be expressed in the exterior participation. Since the object of liturgical worship is to promote the self-oblation of the faithful as a spiritual sacrifice in union with Christ, 31 a constantly more profound transformation in Christ is required, in the sense of the Pauline admonition, "Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus"
PARTICIPATIO ACTUOSA IN THEOLOGICAL AND MUSICAL PERSPECTIVE. DOCUMENTARY CONSIDERATIONS
(Reprinted from Divini Cultus Studium,
by Robert A. Skeris. Altotting: Verlag Alfred Coppenrath, 1990.)

31. A -M. Roguet, Participation in the Mass - the theological principles:
V. Ryan (ed.), Studies in Pastoral Liturgy 2 (Dublin 1963) 120/37, here 127

More in a link from this page.

Also, at this link you'll find a book published by CMAA that offers essays I think you will find helpful, based on what you said you are looking for:
https://www.scribd.com/document/12699133/Sing-Like-a-Catholic

You should be able to download the book and read it on your preferred device. I'd recommend not reading that book cover to cover to begin with: look at the table of contents for essays on the topics you're most interested in, and read those first.

WOW!!! Thank you for this. I have saved a copy and linked it as well in the Library's catalog.

This discussion has been beneficial and enriching to me, for certain, I am grateful to all of you for the candor, the education, as well as the mutual respect shown, throughout.
Tommy

Paul -

Take heart. There are numerous OF parishes and cathedrals which offer music and liturgy of appropriate dignity. So, I think that we must have some company. We, after all, number only about forty-eight or so parishes, some of which are fledgling. In the vastness of the OF there are, I should think, numerous churches and cathedrals which have music and liturgy that is fitting. And, they do have several excellent hymnals, The Lumen Christi Hymnal being, in my opinion, the best. It is, because of its contents, in a class by itself.

Our Credo III is getting better each week. While I agree with you that it is beautiful, I really regret that we are singing it instead of Credo I, which is the only one ever sung at Sarum. Credo I is the Sarum Creed.

It is curious that although OCP has the Archbishop of Portland as Chairman of the Board, and some of them are regarded as 'conservative', OCP are allowed to spread this degraded liturgy. Cdl Levada has gone on to chair the Ecclesia Dei Commission, among other duties.

Well, Archbishop Sample of Portland, who is OCP's chairman, recently promulgated a new Archdiocesan Liturgical Handbook. If you haven't gotten a file of it, click on the link below. It's very thorough and probably the best compilation of liturgical guidelines in print:
https://archdpdx.org/documents/2018/6/ALH First Edition REV - 3 June 2018.pdf

Some quotes that pertain to music:

1.4.1 Given the surpassing value of the Sacrifice of Holy Mass, the fount and summit of the whole of Christian life, its celebration is always prepared attentively. Texts and rites are selected with care, the prayers and readings from the Word of God are properly proclaimed, and where possible there is dignified and appropriate sacred music. All this is ensured in a setting where the church building, sanctuary, sacred vestments and other sacred furnishings are dignified, proper, clean and safeguarded by habitual good practice.

1.46.2 In the course of her two-thousand-year history, the Church has created, and still creates, music and chants which represent a rich patrimony of faith and love, and this heritage must not be lost. Mere improvisation or the introduction of music which fails to respect the meaning of the liturgy should be avoided. Everything - texts, music, and execution - ought to correspond to the meaning of the mystery being celebrated, the structure of the rite, and the different times of the liturgical year.

1.47.3 It is the right of the community of Christ’s faithful that especially in the Sunday celebration there should customarily be true and suitable sacred music.

3.1.6 For their part, the faithful people, by reason of their Baptism into the Catholic Church, have a right to a Sunday celebration of the Eucharist that is carefully prepared beforehand in accordance with the liturgical and canonical norms of the Church, so that the texts and rites are selected with care, there is suitable and truly sacred music, the Word of God is properly and efficaciously proclaimed and explained, their faith is duly safeguarded and nourished by the words pronounced and sung in the celebration....

Those and others indicate that the publishing and educational offerings of OCP are not in harmony with the official standards of the Archdiocese of Portland. There is quite a disconnect. Changing OCP's direction and emphasis won't be easy, but +Sample has put things in place to begin doing just that. First things first?

If OCP folds, some other publisher will still sell all the trash music. OCP, even if gone, doesn't eliminate the market for that music. It will still be there.

No one thinks more highly of Archbishop Sample than I. However, I suspect he may need the money OCP generates.

[Off-topic warning]

Middlest

Are there degrees of middleness?

When is Archbishop Sample going to emphasize the chanting of the Propers? When, oh when, is he going to address this? That would do a lot to alleviate the problem of the 4 hymn sandwich. Unless the Propers emphasized are composed to more OCP drivel, and are not beautiful settings of them at all. But still.... the words of the Propers (which are mainly the psalms), are better suited to the Mass, and more holy, than most hymns are.

The singing by the body of the faithful is an eschatological sign. That's why, in the OF, the instructions for the Sanctus in particular call for it.

Addendum: GIRM 40’s model proceeds, historically, from the hierarchies of singing for High Mass given in the 1967 and 1958 instructions on sacred music. It’s an eminently practical one because it prioritizes those parts for singing that congregations can most easily learn.

I don't know who came up with the term, "four hymn sandwich." It really is kind of idiotic. What would a three hymn sandwich be, a weight watchers sandwich? Or a two hymn? Maybe equivalent to starving third worlders? One hymn, a homeless sandwich? Did anyone ever hear of a four propers sandwich? Totally goofy.

Yes, it was a pun and an inverted metaphor. See my initial comment on the original context at the beginning of this topic.....

Stimson, depends on where you work. I do some chant and polyphony, but I wouldn't be allowed to do it exclusively.

I was just thinking that it might increase the faith of the people if they were allowed to chant the psalms to simple but beautiful melodies in their own languages. And the easiest way to do that is at Holy Mass. Outside of Holy Mass people tend to be too tied down and fatigued with earthly cares to learn to chant the psalms. (I guess I am just in love with the psalms.) Just chanting the responses to the priest and the Ordinaries is, well, just chanting the responses and the Ordinaries. It just doesn't get the average pew sitter very far. Just forget it. Chanting the psalms at Mass by the faithful will probably never happen. And there are also plenty of people who are determined to see that it never happens.

Also, as an organist, I must decrease and the clergy, choir, and congregation must increase. The use of the human voice is paramount "in offering up prayer to Almighty God."

I wish I could begin and end every day here!

A lot of us feel that way, CeciliaJulia!

So the Parson's Handbook decrees! How can Roman Catholics do other??

"should we be trying to make the liturgy beautiful and majestic, and in that way allow God's presence to enter the hearts of the congregation, or should we focus on "encouraging" them to "participate" in an overt way?"

That is the BIG question.

I'm not sure I see it as an either / or. It may sometimes be one; other times the other. It's like saying - should we have Carmelites or Dominicans as the order of religious in the Church?

If you do your best to incorporate the congregation into what you do musically for the Mass, God bless you and I wish you the best of success in that. If your primary focus is on edification and illustration of the Liturgy through the best that the Church has to offer through its rich musical heritage - even if that largely excludes the congregation - God bless you and I wish you the best of success in that. Ideally, there is some sort of balance to be had, but that balance will likely vary from region to region and even parish to parish... and no one of us is the best judge of all situations and circumstances.

What I would find more concerning than (potentially) lack of beauty on the one hand or (potentially) lack of congregational involvement on the other is trying to apply a universal rule - that we must always X. Kind of like trying to force Carmelites to be teachers and Dominicans to be contemplatives.

high art is also vital.

So. The choir should not be 'monopolizing' the singing of all those parts; that is the part of the PIP's, (etc.)

Whence comes the "high art"?? Or better put, who performs that?

That has been the question since VatII closed; it was THE discussion at the Chicago/Milwaukee International Church Music convention (1966), and has been the topic of several gazillion words in Sacred Music journal from the mid-'60's through today.

I see. Having been actively involved for well over 40 years, I have a different perspective from you.