I'm no longer on twatter, but my vote would be for a fifth option: it depends heavily on the skill level of the organist and the schola. Good organist with an iffy schola that needs some prodding, OK. Inexperienced organist (at least as regards supple chant accompaniment) with a schola that could other wise sing without it? No thank you. On the whole I prefer chant without organ, yet we do use organ with anything congregational (singing the Regina Cæli at the end of every Mass, for example).

If, in that land beyond time and far away, all the singers had pitch awareness and could sing without accompaniment, no accompaniment would be needed. I never had those singers and mine needed accompaniment to stay on pitch or anywhere near it.

Depends... as many know on this forum, I use the NOH exclusively for chant accomp... (and sometimes compose my own, but rarely). The NOH is modal and is far different (and I believe far better and true to nature of chant accomp) than any of the many others I have seen. It is more difficult to play, but does not give the impression of vertical harmony, but more a polyphonic texture of harmony that defers to the melody in a beautiful fashion.

The chant is truly made for a live acoustic if sung a cappella, but that is hard to find in most parishes, which leave the harmonic texture somewhat dry and flat... it is the horizontal movement of chant that creates its harmonic sensability, and when put in a lively acoustic environment, it comes alive. (sympathetic vibrations of the building, echo and reverb) exposing the hidden harmonies within.

I sing it mostly a cappella, but then when we use the organ, I only use an 8' flute or coupled to an 8' string, and the softest 16 and 8 flutes in the pedal... quite effective. I will use the 8' principal to support the congregational chant.

Chan is best, and is real chant when sung strictly a cappella. I grudgingly admit, though, that in our age people do not have the inborn sense of pitch and musical flow that have been almost universal up into our own times when music has become all but a strictly listened to-but-not- participatory activity. The problem with modern (19th to 21st century) accompaniment styles is that they really have the effect of sapping the spirit out of the chant. Chant has, of course, been 'accompanied' in various ways since early in the mediaeval era, but these examples (starting with an organum style played on the organ's blockwerk) were far from as maudlin and saccharine as modern accompaniments seem to be. Such imposed accompaniments really enforce the conception of chant as sad. One may observe that chant really stopped being chant from the moment of its first accompaniments before the middle ages were very old.

If you feel it necessary to accompany your schola, do so with having it in mind gradually to wean them from it. The lack of musicality - an inborn sense of pitch and musical flow acquired by osmosis from an elder generation, not to mention a very real emotional understanding of chant or any other music - may sometimes make it helpful to use an organ for pitch continuity. but it should be viewed as a temporary aid to maintaining pitch. However, one's shola will never, never rise to the heights of emotional freedom, even ecstasy, which is evident in real chant. As for congregational singing? I have heard too many times a congregation of 200 or more people sing a Gregorian ordinary a cappella and with confidence to be at all respectful of those who maintain that they cannot do so. As I have stressed before, the problem is too often not that 'the people', or 'children', or whomever cannot sing chant, but the poverty of mind and teaching talent of the musician him- or herself.

Parenthetically, there are those for whom chant just isn't chant unless it is accompanied by their favourite book of accompaniments, unless they get to accompany it. Their focus is really on the organ, the accompaniment really putting the encumbered chant in a straight jacket. it is comical that these accompaniment enthusiasts will assure one that the organ is a subtle and hardly heard presence in the background, when actually it sticks out like the proverbial sore thumb, sapping the chant of energy or impetus.

I prefer to sing unaccompanied, as we never rehearse with accompaniment, rarely have anyone to play organ, and thus on those rare occasions I find it very distracting. But I could see it being helpful for supporting congregational singing or a weak schola.

If I'm not singing I prefer to hear just voices for the clarity of sound.

Will one next want the schola to sing chant with Pythagorean intervals to make it more "authentic".

Yes, actually - this is no "museum piece" but is widely considered to be the most euphonious way of tuning a melody and is commonly used by string players to this day.

For me, it has nothing to do with historical accuracy and everything to do with what works nowadays and provides the best technical rendition.

My preference is unaccompanied chant, and that's the only way my choir is allowed to chant.

I'll sometimes conclude a hymn or a Communion song with an a cappella verse or refrain in SATB. People in the pews are often struck by the beauty of unaccompanied singing.

In my observations something labelled a 'museum piece' is mostly anything that is different from what the speaker has in mind, wants, is accustomed to, or what he or she may prefer to sing or teach.

I will raise the stakes here.

Quite a number of years ago I visited Solesmes. Solesmes has put out quite a few recordings of Gregorian chant over the years. But what surprised me was that their chanting the divine office live there was accompanied with the organ. When I inquired, the response was something like "Oh, we only sing GC unaccompanied for those CDs."

I grasped the idea immediately, that whatever helps sung prayer at the liturgy should be always considered. Moreover, it also occurred to me that the organist too is praying, not with his mouth but with his heart which is modulating the prayerful sounds of the organ. What is important is prayer at the liturgy, is not some "authentic" concert performance or musical antiquarianism for the musical critics, or worse, for the ivory tower know-it-alls like we had for the "reform" of the liturgy.

I am also reminded of the time when, immediately following Summorum Pontificum, the local bishop had a sung Traditional Latin Mass at his cathedral, the first one in over 40 years. The cathedral was packed, perhaps because the people there wanted to have that mystical experience they were lacking in the New Mass. The choir and the director were from the local university. The director was excellent and in fact is well known in the chant literature, and the choir sang the chant well. But I knew it would be a disaster when the choir sang all the chant a cappella. The next time a TLM was held there a few months later, the cathedral was only 1/4 full, and eventually fizzled out to a small group of about 50 people over the years. My point is, that as well intentioned and as proper the performance of the chant was according to the latest scholarship, it did not speak to the hearts of the ordinary people there. Very few had likely ever heard monodony sung by a choir unaccompanied like that, except perhaps in horror movies, and judging by the age of so many, they were expecting the lyrical music of pre-Vatican II they had been accustomed to, not the perfect music of the "experts".

Pope Benedict commented (if I recall correctly) on music written by modern musicians as being (in Charles' expression) "produced by experts for other experts", and therefore not readily appreciable by a wider audience. Some "experts" are just snobs in disguise, but others are, in fact, not merely knowledgeable in their fields and skillful in achieving their desired results, but also capable of communicating a good, healthy appreciation of this result and that knowledge to a wider audience.

Mind you, get two mathematicians or two engineers together in the same room and they might just as well be speaking a foreign language for anyone else in the room. (Ducking and covering now, since there are so many mathematicians here....)

Generally, I’m with Francis on the accompaniment side of organ registration, 8’ flutes etc. When I fill in for the organist at my church, I use a different accompaniment for the Commons of the Mass (A simple French arranged version, I don’t know the name of the publication where it comes from since it is an incomplete copy I have), and I never accompany the propers.

Last time I played before I recently arrived in Germany for a business trip, one of the gentlemen thanked me. He said that it was nice to actually be able to hear both the congregation supported by the organ, rather than have the instrument more or less blast out the music. I thanked him and told him that it was also nice to actually be able to hear the congregation from the bench. Because I usually change up the registration while I play, I also deactivated the speaker system to the organ console so all I could rely on was the sound coming from the nave. It was a nice affect....Back to the point, I prefer accompaniment with the Commons; although I’m not a big fan of the “Accompaniment to the Vatican Kyriale by Achille Braggers”. Hence I use something else.

My point is, that as well intentioned and as proper the performance of the chant was according to the latest scholarship, it did not speak to the hearts of the ordinary people there. Very few had likely ever heard monodony sung by a choir unaccompanied like that, except perhaps in horror movies, and judging by the age of so many, they were expecting the lyrical music of pre-Vatican II they had been accustomed to, not the perfect music of the "experts".

For better or worse, this is true for Gregorian chant, even when talking about people interested in music history and musicology, as far as the liturgy goes.

It is much less true for accurately performing Baroque music and music of the "Middle Ages" and the "Renaissance;" although Jordi Savall might be overextended — I find it hard to believe that he is equally expert in both Iberian music of the thirteenth century and French of the seventeenth — his music is always a treat. Ditto Les Arts Florissants and a number of other ensembles dedicated to the historically informed performance of period music. Even there, however, the recording from LAF of H. 146, the Te Deum of Charpentier, that dates to 1986 IIRC is very different from later performances ; it's rather slow, and one can go too far. Should an orchestra that passed down music from the composer himself — let's say Beethoven — be expected to ditch it all in favor of period instruments and supposed practice? Probably not, although a period orchestra performing Beethoven might be very interesting, and while I've heard wonderful performances of the reconstructed Miserere of Allegri, nevertheless, the Miserere is the version with the C's and the mode VIII psalm tone.

Why this is, I don't know. It's perhaps due to the instrumentation that gives a bit of a lift to a performance that chant wouldn't have, even if you have organs or horns to provide a sort of accompaniment.

For me, whatever flaws might exist in the Solesmes method (even when performed more accurately, e.g. by Fontgombault) seem to be outweighed by what clearly seems like a concert and what is also the work of the imagination in many cases. I know of at least one CMAA Colloquium faculty member who is against the classical Solesmes method but who takes great issue with Marcel Pérès, because what he does is either speculation or outright incorrect, yet that's what people in the pews seem to think of as "what chant may have sounded like" because his albums are frequently uploaded to Youtube. There are other musicians who perform very interesting music that is perhaps more accurate, but it is not, in my view, adequately in service of the liturgy.

So I would push back on MJO's point, as on the flip side of what I've just said is that European respect for scholarship gets you people who know just enough to be dangerous, as Pérès is admired here, despite the very grave flaws in his performance of chant, and it is also true, I think that too many musicologists in North America are either not Catholic or are liberals, which does not really help their case when it comes to the day-to-day use of Gregorian chant in the liturgy. Is that unfair? I don't know. But it's very irritating to be told by people who have no skin in the game that Solesmes no longer uses the classical method, that the rhythmic markings are junk, and that the melodies in other graduals are more accurate, "based on the latest research," as if this is supposed to help sustain the faith in the Netherlands and in Germany (the two places where such seem to have caught on the most, if the internet is a reliable guide). I can take it from the CMAA faculty members, to whom I owe a great deal and whom I admire very much, although I like the classical method and won't change it for the world, although I will follow Fontgombault and insist on a crisper performance when it's up to me. But I refuse to take it from people for whom chant is clearly an academic exercise above all, whether they be monks in liberal monasteries in the US or laypeople wherever.

Gregorian chant is a kind of art-music which if performed according to expertise will likely sound terribly alien to the ears of today's pop-cultured congregations

Well, this is why I brought up people who are "cultured" and who appreciate not only classical music but historically informed performance; I've heard, from the same people, raving reviews of such music when it comes to secular and non-liturgical music as well as absolutely scathing comments of chant sung in a supposedly more historically accurate way in the context of the liturgy.

I pretty much only know Solesmes chant, and that's what I teach my choir. I'm aware that some scholarship disagrees with Solesmes notation and rhythm, but I find that Solesmes makes it quite easy for a volunteer choir to learn a chant and to stay together while singing unaccompanied.

I've heard a few so-called "historically accurate" chant performances, and I much prefer the pacing of Solesmes chant for parish liturgy.

I found this video in a search for "historically accurate gregorian chant". I thought it was very good. Sharing it:
https://youtu.be/QuRrd35kvUo

You seem to be making a better case for simply not programming chant than performing it with accompaniment, as your arguments are equally applicable to accompanied chant.

Moreover, most of us with unease towards accompanied chant don't do so for snobbish reasons, but practical ones. I think it's unfair to paint those with such reasons as not facilitating prayer in the liturgy, and I would argue that the issue of accompaniment has no bearing on such whatsoever.

The first paragraph is particularly ridiculous.

Merely accompanying it isn't going to fundamentally change the style in a way that makes it more palatable to those who already hate chant or believe it is "out of touch" with modern Catholicism.

I must agree with you there. Anyone who is open to chant generally doesn't care (I'm speaking of general people in the pews) whether its accompanied or not; they are typically happy either way. But people who dislike chant likely won't embrace it suddenly now that there's some organ in the background. In fact, adding organ probably only makes them perceive it as even older church music since many uninformed church goers these days believe the organ is old and out of touch too. Putting the two together is likely the cherry on top for them, not the gateway to new appreciation.

Split the difference, and accompany every other note. On piano. That way, people have a choice to laugh or cry.

I'm not sure how you can accuse me of acting unprovoked, when I'm responding to you.

I don't remember directly attacking you, as you've done in the past, or merely insulting my point of view without contributing anything to the discussion, as you just did in this thread. I don't wish to derail this thread, but one of the things I appreciate about this forum is the chance to have polite, earnest discussions with individuals with whom I disagree. Every time you engage me, it has an extremely malicious tone that I haven't found anywhere else on this forum, and one that I don't believe I've matched in any way.

Is it venomous? Well, it's certainly not meant to be, but I'd also suggest that it is hardly so in reality, and whatever disagreement is entirely justified, both between my feelings on the subject and the way that you basically sidestepped a legitimate discussion. You can think that I'm wrong, as you mostly do, but that's not really the point, now is it.

This kind of tone what I'm talking about.

To actually engage with your argument: you set up a dichotomy that I don't believe is particularly accurate, considering a) chant has been accompanied almost since its inception, and b) there is not an absolute overlap between chant "scholars" and those involved in its active performance who disagree with accompanying it. In my view, many of the consequences of accompanied chant (especially tending towards a slower, heavier performance) are exactly what many PiPs with mixed feelings on chant tend to dislike. Purely on a practical performance level, accompaniment introduces unwanted habits from the singers. Frankly, I don't care about the minutiae of chant scholarship or historical reproduction; as a musician, I am only concerned with what best produces the rhetorical, text-driven, and varied style of chant which I believe best communicates its nature.

The discussion should be between what methods of accompaniment, if any, might make the Gregorian language more palatable to the uninitiated and/or provide better support for singers, rather than taking shots at "chant scholars" and insinuating by connection that those of us who happen to share the same conclusion, but for different reasons, are similarly out of touch. That line of reasoning is uncomfortably close to the argument that chant itself is out of touch and only performed for "elites" - something which Jackson elaborated in an above post.

it allows for a flexibility of chant performance for all the ages.

All of your prayerful contributions to chant are good, beautiful and appreciated... prayerful is the key thing... accompanied, unaccompanied, it really doesn't matter... none of them are the 'correct' way. Get over yourselves and sing the chant... the best way you can!

It might be nice to actually HEAR your version... post it here. Thank you.

I accompany the ordinaries because the congregation sings them better when I do, and because there is extremely well-established precedent for doing so in good faith. Quite plainly, I also like how it sounds, whether I'm playing or in the pews. My most joyful and spiritually rapturous moments praying Mass have been experienced due to a boisterously sung and firmly accompanied ordinary at TLM missa cantata.

I don't accompany the propers, primarily because my small and somewhat timid volunteer schola can't sing them without me standing with them and singing at them (I play and direct). They're also a different animal than the ordinaries, obviously.

I once failed to put the text to the gospel acclamation verse on the organ with my sheet music, didn't realize this until I had already started playing, and therefore had do trust the crew to sing it without me. I hit the first chord of the psalm tone and didn't sing, so neither did they! I just finished playing through the psalm tone all alone, and they came back in for.the last iteration of "alleluia." I was about evenly amused and angry.

That sounds like a harmless approach.

thread is heading off track, but...

In my opinion, the schemes presented in the above 3 comments for dividing the Exsultet do violence to its form and function as a prayer of blessing and consecration. It should be chanted by one minister; and if the cantor is not ordained, it makes no sense to give part of the text to someone else. How can we possibly follow the exhortation—

...invoke with me, I ask you,
the mercy of God almighty,
that he, who has been pleased to number me,
though unworthy, among the Levites,
may pour into me his light unshadowed,
that I may sing this candle’s perfect praises.

—if the one exhorting us doesn't then go on to sing the praises of this pillar?

You can't baptise by having one person say "I baptise you in the name of the Father", a second say "and of the Son", and a third "and of the Holy Spirit". Likewise, you can't consecrate a candle by divvying up the prayer of consecration.

...at least that's my argument.

(I note that the strength of this argument is somewhat reduced by the current practice of concelebration, but I counter that the prayer of consecration is said in full by all concelebrants).