Mass happens up there. Singing happens down here.

I guess I should explain more...the scheduling of the celebrant is up in the air...we won't know until later if the designated celebrant will or will not be able to do a Missa Cantata. I would hate to prepare my schola with the propers if we can't use them.

So right now, I'm thinking of doing the propers myself (if we have a sung Mass), then have the schola do other misc chants (ave verum, ave maria, etc...) and the ordinary either way. Is that acceptable to sing misc. chants and the ordinary?

You could plan a Missa Cantata, and then revert to a Latin Novus Ordo, at which you can then sing whatever Propers etc. you want.

We will have an organist. I'm planning on using improv, if allowable.

Adam, actually a good idea, but it wouldn't work here. Ironically enough, the low-mass-only celebrant already knows how to SING the OF in latin. He just doesn't know the EF rubrics yet for sung Masses... so it's funny you say that.

Places for music at a low mass include-

Prelude
Entrance hymn (can be a vernie)
Offertory
Post-consecration
Communion
Final hymn (again, can be a vernie)
Postlude

I've been told no parts of the actual music OF the mass may be sung, only music AT the mass. This would mean no Ordinary chants. I've also been told no vernacular during the mass, but that's been bended lots...

Low mass with hymns is where the four-hymn sandwich originated, fwiw.

Hilluminar, to be clear, I'm not trying to prove anything. I didn't rule out possibilities. I'm relaying what I've been told to do, and quite clearly, as DoM at a FSSP parish for the last five years. (St. Anne Church, San Diego)

Low Mass with sung ordinary and propers would be a surprise to most musicians actually and regularly working in the EF. I have no major personal feeling about it, no dog in the fight, just speaking from experience.

Ben, maybe the best thing to do is check with the celebrant? What is perfectly logical to musicians may or may not be allowed, or may be a matter of ambiguity. At any rate, the celebrant should be able to give assistance.

Shawnk is correct.

Thanks to J. Ostrowski for publishing the interview with Dom Hugle. So both ordinary and proper was allowed in Low Mass. The only answer to that is following: preserving the tradition does not mean repeating every single mistake from the past. Perhaps, better is to have silence if the priest says a Missa Lecta, or vernacular hymns, or organ music. If choirs will start to sing ordinary and propers over Missae Lectae some priests will conclude that they need not sing at all: the choir will do all the beautiful music anyway.

As far as we understand it, we can have any of the following (N.B. This only applies to the EF):

Low Mass, aka silent / quiet mass
Low Mass with hymns, (in this case 'hymn' can mean vernacular song)

Missa Cantata, Full Proper and Ordinary are sung.
We sing quite a few Masses during the week, so finding enough Altar Servers can be a problem, so we regularly use the permission to have a Missa Cantata with low Mass ceremonies. N.B. The priests parts are sung as normal, but there will be no incense / candles.

Of course we can also have the full High Mass.

During the 20th c. other options became available such as a dialog Mass, and various uses in Europe that replaced the Propers with some song. This of course led to the N.O. and do we really want to go there with the EF.

If we want we can always have the N.O. in Latin, with whatever 'music' we like.

I sing at the E.F. because the options are limited, so I cannot be forced to sing some English song or other music unsuitable for the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.

Pope Pius X exhorted the faithful: don't sing AT Holy Mass; sing the Holy Mass.

I've always thought that a "Low Mass with music" was a hybrid, a compromise, an attempt to do two things at once.

That said, one could, quite reasonably, end Mass with the singing of the relevant Marian antiphon - which, at present, for more than one reason, is the Salve Regina.

The Rubrics in the Liber see below for a discussion,

http://forum.musicasacra.com/forum/discussion/7105/liber-usualis-anybody-have-a-copy-with-rubrics-in-english-from-before-1961-/p1

Also from the LMS online ordo;

http://www.lms.org.uk/find-a-mass/liturgical-notes-2013
Quote.
"Sacred Music

During High or Sung Mass nothing may be sung in the vernacular.

If the Sanctus and Benedictus are sung in plainsong they are chanted without a break between them, otherwise the Benedictus is to be sung after the Consecration.

During the Consecration all singing must cease, nor may the organ (or any other musical instrument) be played.

The Communion antiphon is sung as the Celebrant distributes Holy Communion. If anything else is sung it is to follow the Communion antiphon.

(De Sacra Musica - Instruction of the Sacred Congregation of Rites on Sacred Music and Liturgy 3rd September 1958)"

N.B. "CEREMONIES OF THE ROMAN RITE" does not seem to have a section on the choir / schola, or not what I could see in this older edition.

http://archive.org/stream/ceremoniesofrom00fort#page/140/mode/2up

This would be a great option for a pastroal approach to Spanish-speaking congregations in the U.S. at Epiphany, many of whom continue to celebrate Three Kings' Day on January 6.

Does anyone else see the very existence of Low Masses as a liturgical abuse? I attended Low Masses for three years and came to hate them.

rogue63, hilluminar, I'm very sympathetic to your perspective. Today, the EF for the Latin Rite suffers from a "low Mass culture". People - and priests - do not understand the objective value of the the sung liturgy. Which is to say, they really don't understand the liturgy itself.

But... What do you think a priest 1500 years ago did when he celebrated public mass without singers to chant the lections and the psalms? Certainly there must have been such occasions. And what do you suppose he did when he celebrated Mass with no ecclesial infrastructure at hand in order to supply the angelic food to the faithful?

A "low Mass" perhaps?

Every time I have referred to the low mass as an aberration, the Tridentine pitchforks have been aimed in my direction by the incense huffers, bell clangers, and mantilla tossers. ;-) It is an aberration and it has warped and distorted the reality of what the mass was, is, and should be for hundreds of years. It departs from early Church practice and even in the east, Liturgy is only offered on Saturdays, Sundays, and Holy Days. Since Vatican II, it has had an even greater ill effect since nearly every sacrament in the western Church is somehow folded into it. None of them seem to stand on their own any more. The whole idea of shortening the mass and making it convenient is anything but good practice. If you are going to have Divine Liturgy, do it right! And no, you won't perish in the flames if you don't go to daily mass.

I, too with Adam, sense a subtle shift in sensibilities being expressed in a number of locations on the web. I alluded to forum member Dr. Kwasniewski's article at NLM regarding the history and argued-for graces that "attend" the return of the silent canon, and unlike most of the commentators there, remain unconvinced though not unsympathetic.
But there's always a "long and short" of things, and I don't presume to have confidence in myself, other liturgical fellow travelers, nor the faithful in general that all of us have the skinny on the purpose of liturgy in a unified field mentality.
The WWJD part of me keeps whispering "I came that you might have life, life in abundance." In that perspective I'm with Adam, we offer those such fruits, bitter or sweet, back to the Lord in concert with His sacrifice. But it is extremely difficult to imagine a reinstitution of systematic "interiorization" of silent prayer, contemplation or daydreaming, clock-watching on the other hand now that the horses of VII are out of the barn. (All these metaphors!)
As a musician that has a long-life belief that music, not math, is the sacral language of the cosmos, I cannot imagine the regimen of a silent Mass, and also find the construct of the low Mass, hymn sandwich aberrant. I know that in the canon being uttered in secreto I KNOW there remains these words from humans, "now let us join heavenly choirs in an unending hymn of praise as we exclaim...." Mere contemplation of that alone seems a ridiculous folly.
Plus, after listening to some pretty wise sages, mostly priests (Jesuits at that), tell me about the realities of the 20th century low Mass experience, then I am even more skeptical of those who would reinvent and glamorize that history with fanciful semantics and rhetoric.
This might have seemed to some a rant, it's not. I'm actually quite confused over why we Catholics obsess about "sacred treasury, deposit of faith,and inheritance" as if they were golden calfs. Go to Mass. Participate. But don't come back to your laptop and perform an autopsy about it.

I just posted some thoughts on a related subject...
http://www.chantcafe.com/2013/10/the-best-we-can-do.html

Yeah- I don't think places have multiple Masses because of too-small buildings, but rather the other way around.

Yeah, Mat-tyieux, try having the opposite happen: many's the time that in our burg of 130K people the local motorcycle club calls for a fun run, or even a toy run that gets sanctioned by the council and police but not publicized. So I'm not on my Harley trying to get to church across a thousand bikers blocking access from the south side to the north side of town on an important feast day. OMGosh, patience becomes a bit less a virtue.
I guess that would fall under the category of a low-rider, or easy-rider Mass.

I agree with a Melkite Deacon who complained that the trouble with the Latin church is that we have mass for everything, when an hour of the Divine Office would be more appropriate. Daily Mass is something which came about from Western monasticism.

At the annual school awards night at St Patrick's Cathedral, Parramatta (Australia) we have done sung vespers instead of mass for a few years and it is well-received. It also means that the well-meaning, but liturgically illiterate who would otherwise organise the event cannot have any say over what music is provided, as they must go with the set Psalms and use hymns from the Divine Office.

There is also now the problem where people view mass as the only thing which one needs to attend. At several conference and retreats I have organised music for, a mere fraction of the attendees ever come to Lauds or Vespers.

Low Mass has not gone away in the OF, not by a longshot. Many Sunday Masses are without music, or have the four-hymn sandwich plus a resp. psalm and a random Agnus Dei or some such. They are practically low masses with 2-3 pieces of bonus music. Some have a little more. Still, most all of our masses are not fully sung liturgies.

So lets not get too puffed up about low mass.

Virtually all weekday masses at typical OF only parishes are essentially low masses, with people saying their parts, same as before the council. Does anyone here honestly think that fully sung liturgies every day of the week are doable in most parishes? Is anyone suggesting that pastors stop offering mass publicly on weekdays because no mass should happen if its not fully sung?

For Sundays, how many choirs will stick around and sing for 3-4 masses? A cantor and an organist isn't the liturgical ideal either. But we do it out of practical necessity.

So, again, let's not get too puffed up about the existence of low mass.

Do I think low mass is the pinnacle of public worship? No, of course not. We can wax poetic about the beauty of sung liturgy, and (like me!) pour out our blood, sweat, and tears into training armies of choral singers to sing Gregorian chant and polyphony. At the end of the day, we all must do our best and face practical realities on the ground. Low mass is a practical reality.

I've done weekday masses where only the ordinary, psalm and gospel acclamation were sung plainchant and quiet organ music covered for the introit, offertory and communion.

MaryAnn has said it for me---every weekday and Sunday "recited" Mass is an aberration. Our sins are aberrations; our death is an aberration. Sin and death were not intended by God, and are therefore aberrations. Tridentine Low Mass was never the intended form of liturgical celebration, and is therefore an aberration.

Isn't there a little room on this forum to openly vent out some feelings without getting the "let's-be-practical" criticism? I play and sing for Pauline "Low" Masses every weekend, and several times during the week. Are they perfect? No. Do they save souls? Yes. Can they be improved? Yes.

Why not aim for perfection? Should we not yearn and thirst for the courts of the Lord?

+1 Adam Wood

Well met, sir. Thanks for highlighting the problem so clearly.

There is no reason why the Holy Mass cannot be sung every day. The priest can chant his parts, the few faithful who attend can chant simple Ordinaries. The Maronites where I live do it every day, and they even have incense at every Holy Mass, every day. What is the big deal? And, with a little pointing of Propers, and the Lalemant book of Propers by ccwatershed for those Propers which are the same as the previous Sunday, it is easily doable, especially if the church hires a cantor for daily Holy Masses. This is not out of the realm of possibility!