Getting back to chant: I have a 19th century choir book (published 1822) that includes harmonised metrical chant. We tried singing some of it; very odd.
Unfortunately the book is in my office at the cathedral (all locked up) and I'm furloughed. I'll see if I can sneak in one day soon and scan the odd page.

I have a photo of a page from the book, showing a two part arrangement of the plainchant Ave verum corpus. I also have a quote from a priest in the 1820s describing chant as a 'wild style' of music, which presumably they thought had to be made to conform to current tastes. This is one such attempt. I'll see if I can attach it.

It's enough to make one wonder whether ever in its entire history there has been a time when chant was done 'right'!

This method is still alive and well at Notre Dame (and at other European places). The priest or schola-choir sings something that is presumed to be chant, and then a blast of full organ is the people's cue to sing their part of what is presumed to be chant. This procedure is likely hundreds of years old. Much as some of us will do our best to 'restore' chant to its golden age (take your pick of golden century) most people will continue to sing it just as they 'always have' (whatever way that may be).

One thing that is evident
in Mr Quick's offering just above here is that CATHOLICS CAN (or at least did) SING!

...supposedly older...

Ah so.
And until another generation at Solesmes (Cardine, et al.) came up with an even older method. -
and then until musicologists like Marcel Perez came up with yet an even older method -
and then....

(Perhaps some day we will figure out just how the chant of the early fourth century cantors and scholae sounded - but not any time soon.)

Or patting themselves on the back for refraining from complaining.

I've spent the past half hour or so searching in vain for the reference, but I recall reading an anecdote somewhere of the colorful reminiscences of one of the Solesmes monks (Dom Pothier? Dom Mocquereau? Dom Gueranger himself?) of High Mass from his childhood. L'abbé chanteur intoned the chant in a stentorian voice, singing alone throughout, breathing after each note and accompanied by a serpent! Does anyone happen to know where I might have come across this account?