Should chant be sung.....

1)Slowly

tempo depends on text and season and mode

2)Quickly

tempo depends on text and liturgical sense and mode

3) Musically, organized by musical phrase

yes

4) Ploddingly: With equal value to each punctum and all pitches the same speed.

no

5) With great attention to the text regardless of what the notes say

not regardless, but subserviant to the text

6) Legato

depends on the text and the mode and the liturgical sense

7) Rather more punctuated than legato

depends on the text and the mode and the liturgical sense

something else?

always prayerful

In a way the choir can sing it with confidence. Nothing is worse than "mumbled" chant. Of course the acoustics of a building obviously play a part in determining the speed.

I once witnessed a rehearsal where the director was trying to get people to massage certain neumes and liquescents and the like in an effort to have a very nuanced interpretation, but the group didn’t even know what the melody was or how to read even basic rhythms. They were in total newbs to chant (for some in the group, this was literally their first time singing chant), and I felt like we were beating our heads against the wall trying to finesse when the group didn’t even have a basic grip on the fundamentals.

You can teach these nuances to absolute beginners, but you have to do it in the same way that it was done in the middle ages. You have to do it by rote, and by exampling exactly what you want them to do and having them repeat it after you. You can’t expect someone to look at notation they’ve never seen before and find meaning, and certainly not to interpret it in a reasonable way.

1&2: I generally prefer slightly quicker tempos than others; however, a chant should not be sung so fast that the words become unintelligible. The tempo should be fast enough that the music has energy. This is going to depend on each chant. For example, Kyrie Orbis Factor can probably have a bit of a slower tempo than the Introit for All Saints Day.

3: It should always be sung musically otherwise we are not doing our job as musicians.

4: Definitely not plodding. This gets back to what I said about the music having energy. You need to keep the line moving. I do tend to keep the basic pulse the same for each note more in the style of Mocquereau. I adjust this though for quilismas or horizontal episemas and lengthen those notes accordingly.

5: We should pay attention to the text, but we don't need to ignore the music. The text and the music should go together so that each complements the features of the other.

6&7: I do prefer a more rhythmic interpretation, but less so than others. For example, I have heard people sing a tristropha with so much articulation that there is a little space between each note. I think the notes should still be connected, but with a slight rearticulation on each.

Something else: I always try to keep the chant moving and with energy. People who dislike chant tend to complain that it is slow, dragging, and boring. I want to keep enough movement in the line to prevent these sorts of complaints. If we want people to like chant, we need to give them something that is musical. The chant needs to be sung in a way that draws people into the text and into prayer, not puts them to sleep. In my opinion, this is best done through a more energetic interpretation.

Chant does not equal slow. One is a musical form the other is a tempo.

While I understand that the "plodding" approach may not be ideal, if you have a large group or a one that is just learning chant, assigning one or two "beats" to the neume makes it easier for the group to cohere.

Some think first of the note, and secondly of the word or syllable that goes on it.
It should be just the opposite - think first of the word and then of the note.
This can hold for Latin or English, but especially for Latin because not many know Latin and just apply the right syllable. So it is well if the choirmaster (magister chori) can at least give the choir a rudimentary sense of the text. This holds for English as well, because many people sing words without thinking about the meaning of their texts.

I am always aghast to witness a choirmaster (even respected scholars!) take great pains and time on getting the right note rightly sung on the right syllable and say nothing about text, diction, intonation, breathing, or meaning.

@ Chris Garto-Zavesky - I was using the term "plodding" in the sense of the original post. That is, one beat (or two) per neume. I was not referring to final tempo. My point was that although many theorize that chant should mirror the rhythm of speech, most choristers are not native speakers of Latin so the rhythms of the language do not come naturally to them. Also if your group is larger and not as familiar with chant, having them sing together like this will be very difficult:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yt9PKLNllMA

Our Experience in our small Monastic Community has been
1. Not so slow so that it drags and becomes "sausage link" like if you know what I mean...
2. Not so fast that you can't pray what you are singing, there has to be a balance.
3. We usually group in what makes sense grammatically
4. I have only seen Americans doing this- I dont think its a good method.
5. I think you have to take into account both. Gregorian isnt metrical nor is it free for all. Usually semiology can help with this.
6/7. I think Americans have a hard time with legato so if you tell them to do it that way, they will never exceed it and it will sound in between almost always. I tell my sisters all the time to pretend they are singing opera- of course it never sounds that way but if I tell them to do that, it sounds a lot better- much more fluid.

Again this is my own personal experience of it but I think each schola is going to have a different take depending on the situation.

My choir will probably clamor to have “Sing it like you say it!”

I've heard that 'chant is elevated speech,' and 'sing it like music,' and as MJO reminded us, 'the text suggests the music'--rephrased by Pp Benedict as 'the music is the enfleshment of the text.'

They all mean the same thing....

I love this forum so much.