Chris, I think if you accept that argument, you might as well toss out the body of polyphonic Mass settings for the Ordinary as well as all Responsory settings that were clearly written to substitute for the corresponding chanted parts of the Office.

The Victoria Requiem a 4 (for example) has music for several parts of the Propers as well as the Ordinary, but how would your acquaintance justify the singing of a Palestrina / Lotti / Byrd Mass even for simply the Ordinary? The O Magnum Mysterium (various composers) was written for the Responsory during Christmas Matins... let alone the many wonderful settings that were written for Tenebrae Responsories. While we can certainly use those as motets, they were written to be used during the singing of the Office.

We often use the Sicut / Sitivit for the Easter Vigil, and I actually schedule which years will be done in chant vs. which years will be done with the full motet.

I've run into one or two people who have made similar arguments as your acquaintance... but those arguments are (I think) comparable to a kind of musical scrupulosity which is (as scruples are) a distortion of the underlying principle - in this case, the general primacy of chant as the preferred form of Liturgical music. Virtus in medio stat.

Down the road we may even be using your own composition of Circumduxit eam!

I can understand the argument that we should not use Polyphonic settings but this relies on a very restrictive reading of the relevant legislation. All this beautiful polyphony was written for the Mass so why can't we use it?
The one problem with using Polyphonic settings is the text is not always the same as in the modern (1924) edition of the Graduale (although the Missale Romanum does not always use the same text as the Graduale). Our rule is as long as it is largely the same we will use it, I have discussed this with various experts / pedants and they do not see a problem.

Anyway on Sunday we will once again (we have done this for several years) be singing the Issac settings of the Introit, Alleluia, and Communion, for the Communion we sing the Issac, verse, chant, verse etc. so you get to hear the Chant Proper as well. The Propers of the 24th and Last Sunday as well as the Propers of Epiphany 3 are regularly repeated so to avoid singing the same propers for several weeks in a row we sing Issac / Palestrina!

We sing Issac Propers on up to 10 Sundays a year, we also sing the Bruckner Locus Iste as the Gradual (with verse sung to the chant) on Feasts of the Dedication, Sicut / Sitivit at the Easter Vigil / Pentecost Vigil, and we also sing the Palestrina Dextera Domini on 3rd after Epiphany and Maunday Thursday.

As they say 'Variety is the spice of life'

There have been multiple times where we chanted the proper text + verse, and then used the polyphony for the repetition of the proper antiphon. That doesn't mean that we think it wrong to do just the polyphony, but it's always nice to hear what the polyphony is based on, since Isaac did strive to have most of his polyphonic propers recognizable as having come from them.

Thank heavens --- PCED just ruled, in response to a dubium to that effect, that no, the method of chant interpretation is not de jure.

the method of chant interpretation is not de jure.

Nihil, does this mean that the Quires of Sleepy Eye will be taught chant interpretation a la Pustet?

Who on earth is suggesting that polyphonic propers might be “forbidden” in the Extraordinary Form?

This is something I never heard before.

Honestly, I cannot understand some of these questions. At the Sacred Music Symposium, one of the presenters talked about someone who thought a Sung Mass was forbidden on days where the Missal said: Credo dicitur. Their point was that the Missal said “The Credo is said” not sung. I laughed out loud when I heard this.

The Presenter used this example to demonstrate the importance of consulting people who have familiarity with the authentic Catholic liturgy. Otherwise (the Presenter said) we end up making ridiculous errors, such as not understanding the meaning of Credo dicitur.

someone who thought a Sung Mass was forbidden on days where the Missal said: Credo dicitur.

This almost sounds like something I would hear at the St. Mary's Music Conference.

Which reminds me - I need to finish my review of that conference!

someone who thought a Sung Mass was forbidden on days where the Missal said: Credo dicitur.

A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.

Liam,

Your explanation makes sense, but is there evidence that the norm for the OF is singing rather than speaking? I ask because the EF norm is a sung Mass with the bishop. (For others who read this later, remember that "norm" means "how things should be done", not "how things are usually done".)

Of course the final arbiter of what is acceptable at the EF is Father.
One might ask, "Just what was all that polyphony written for?" (for the Office, mostly, but I think you get my point).
Sacrosanctam Concilium tells us that chant should have 'Pride of place" in the liturgy. What does that mean exactly? Theoretically, one could do nothing but polyphonic Ordinary and Proper settings, and at that point, one would clearly not be giving chant pride of place. But how many institutions could sustain such a program?

We just came off a phase of replacing many Offertory and Communion chants with composed settings, mostly from Peter Griesbacher's Repertorium Chorale, but also a bowdlerization of my setting of De profundis clamavi. I wouldn't want to always do that; as a group, it's hard for us to learn pieces for a single use like that.But it seemed fitting to overegg the pudding a little in expectation of Advent. And we were generally doing Gregorian ordinaries. mostly (groan) Mass XI, so there was some balance.

I've never tried composed Introits or Graduals; I think it would be something i'd run by the priest (we have a rotation of them doing our Masses). There are a lot of composed Introits out there (and Asperges!)

I think that we now have, for the EF, perhaps the strictest liturgical rules for music in the history of the Church. I see no need to make them even stricter than they are now.

evidence that the norm for the OF is singing

For a start, GIRM 40:

Great importance should therefore be attached to the use of singing in the celebration of the Mass, ... Although it is not always neccessary (e.g. in weekday Masses) to sing all the texts that are in principle meant to be sung, ...

GIRM 393:

Bearing in mind the important place that singing has in a celebration as a neccessary or integral part of the liturgy,* ...
*SC #112