My favorite is the luminous, impossibly beautiful six-voice "Requiem in memoriam Josquin Desprez" by Jean Richafort. Having sung it at a few memorial Masses over the years, it only gets more miraculous each time. As with all great music, words fail.

I love the ICEL Mass chants and I especially love Fr. Matthew Spencer's adaptation of the ICEL for Spanish. These are certainly far superior, in my opinion, to the Spanish-language stuff that OCP offers.

As far as revised settings go, I love the revised Gloria from a New Mass for a Congregation and the revised Community Mass Sanctus and Memorial acclamation by the late Richard Proulx. They are easy to sing.

Missa Papa Marcelli, hands down

My own, of course. ;-)

In the Diocese of Peoria, we chose the ICEL setting and Janco's Mass of Wisdom for all to learn. The Janco is quite nice; the Gloria is the best I've found (at least, in settings that can "bridge the gap", so to speak . . . can be done in a contemp. or traditional manner), the Sanctus is quite nice, and the rest is serviceable.

I know that the big question when we selected the Janco was, "Will this wear well with time?" That's a hard question to answer at the outset . . . I think that was one of the contributing factors to the success of Haugen's MoCreation. I probably played it 1000+ times, and I was sick of it by last November, but I didn't want to bash my head on the organ each time I had to play it.

My Favorites

One of the things I do agree with our friend Todd Flowerday is that it may take many years for the pre-eminent equivilent of the so-called "default" American Mass such as MOC. However, I don't think that "all things to all people" aesthetic that was embraced and touted necesssarily needs to be the first and foremost concern for such a Mass to ascend. Mike Joncas' recent new Mass is a kind of boullabaise version of that which few parishes could really adopt and appreciate for years.
What I believe would help the process would be for the BCL/USCCB to articulate some addendum recommendations that would give composers some clear notions of when it's appropriate to write for choir alone, or in alternatim with congregation, and when and how to include the congregation's voice and participation without sacrificing artistic integrity and beauty.

You can listen to the aforementioned National Shrine settings here.

We've used the Mass for the City (Proulx) for diocesan masses with brass and it's been quite nice.

In the parish, we've also used the Keil Francis Cabrini Mass and Janco's revised Mass of Redemption.

That was the only mass setting from OCP that I loved. I got voted down on using it by our pastoral comittee. Now I'm stuck with storrington.

I think that Cabrini mass would have been excellent in our parish. I personally ordered the music myself, to have a copy ready for the next opportunity that I can put a better mass in, without having to have everyone's yeh.

Yes, when I listened to it, the choral writing is what struck me. I am also looking for a through-composed Mass setting and I may have found something that fits the bill. Thank you.

It also was not available in print form in time for the early implementation. We had to print our own, which was a pain.

Thanks for the kind words about the Mass of St. Frances Cabrini. I agree that OCP needs to promote it more. At least they finally put it into printed form. If enough people call OCP and request it in a missal, it might happen.