francis - The NO is a fabrication in the true sense of the word - something made by assembling pre-existing components. In this case from elements of the ancient sacramentaries and graduals, and other liturgical texts, and ultimately by extracting phrases from the Bible. As compared with Missals from 500 years ago it avoids the Sequences and "Offertory" prayers newly composed in the second millennium.
Whether it has been well crafted is another question entirely.

I have been a DM for the NO for the past five decades. I STILL presently provide music for both the NO and the TLM. Anytime I ever tried to introduce GC or traditional polyphony to the NO (and that happened in each of my positions), I was consistently met with animosity. The proof is right there for me in the experience of it all.

The creed for the NO was and is this:

https://youtu.be/ETV1DXQk_Gk

a_f_hawkins

Thank you for your transparency.

As for myself, I will not wait, and I will not give in, nor will I be silent.

I will only bring to earth what heaven has commanded me to do while I still have breath... continuing through music, prayer, words and action all in devotion to Jesus as a simple slave of Mary.

Viva Christo Rey!

God bless you all!

mmeladirectress - in 1570 they did not do what the Council of Trent had asked for, they took the missa privata of Vatican officials added purely decorative professional singing (non-functional) and called it missa solemnis. So all the ways of involving the congregation were dropped in favour of conformity to a use which had no congregations. Naturally that suppressed the Amen which Augustine had once described as shaking the rafters. You can still find participation mentioned for example in the Exsultet reference to 'the mighty voices of the people'

I still think the “hermeneutic of continuity” horse meme sums it up best.

Serviam,

I don't know that meme. Elaborate, please.

Hawkins,

Has someone claimed that the work after Trent was "diligent research to respond to the requests of a Council"?

Read Bugnini's book The Reform of the Liturgy, 1948 - 1975. Don't take my word for it: Bugnini's goal wasn't to reform the liturgy in continuity with what had come before. Or, consider Traditionis Custodes, or Fr. Joseph Gelineau SJ. Or Cardinal McElroy.

CG-Z - yes - St Pius V in his Apostolic Constitution Quo Primum

... besides other decrees of the sacred Council of Trent, there were stipulations for Us to revise and re-edit the sacred books: the Catechism, the Missal and the Breviary. ... [Catechism & Breviary done.] therefore ...
We decided to entrust this work to learned men of our selection. They very carefully collated all their work with the ancient codices in Our Vatican Library and with reliable, preserved or emended codices from elsewhere. Besides this, these men consulted the works of ancient and approved authors concerning the same sacred rites; and thus they have restored the Missal itself to the original form and rite of the holy Fathers. When this work has been gone over numerous times and further emended, after serious study and reflection, We commanded that the finished product be printed and published as soon as possible, so that all might enjoy the fruits of this labor; and thus, priests would know which prayers to use and which rites and ceremonies they were required to observe from now on in the celebration of Masses.

I have read a comment by Fr K Peclers that the only amendment they made to Burkhardt;s Curial rubrics for Low Mass was to remove a couple of references to bystanders.
St Paul VI in his own AC was careful to echo this and endorse Quo Primum

Good question! Dear ol' Cardinal Roche just admitted in an interview the other day that the "theology of the mass has changed". (And Lefebvre rolled over in his grave.) *eyeroll*

Hot take: I honestly wouldn't be surprised if in 100 years the barque is righted and he is raised to the altars. People will one day say "Lefebvre contra mundum." This isn't the first time the wider catholic world has lost its mind, alas.

If the NO is an APE of the real Mass and a mistake from start to finish, and we are all just waiting around for the prophesied return of the pre-conciliar Mass, then it doesn't seem to me that there is much point to this forum, or this organization, anymore. That's not meant to be harsh - just pragmatic. Just go do EF music, and be done with it, and be happy. I definitely understand the desire to just open up the Graduale Romanum, sing what's there, and go home. Because working in the NO is complicated, and there are compromises, etc., etc. But if you really believe it is just something that needs to be discarded, I'm not sure what there is to talk about anymore.

FWIW, we do Gregorian Chant every single week, in large amounts, at my NO parish, and there has not been any revolt or even controversy. Sometimes you need to get out more.

If the NO is an APE of the real Mass and a mistake from start to finish, and we are all just waiting around for the prophesied return of the pre-conciliar Mass, then it doesn't seem to me that there is much point to this forum, or this organization, anymore. That's not meant to be harsh - just pragmatic. Just go do EF music, and be done with it, and be happy. I definitely understand the desire to just open up the Graduale Romanum, sing what's there, and go home. Because working in the NO is complicated, and there are compromises, etc., etc. But if you really believe it is just something that needs to be discarded, I'm not sure what there is to talk about anymore.

FWIW, we do Gregorian Chant every single week, in large amounts, at my NO parish, and there has not been any revolt or even controversy. Sometimes you need to get out more.

I'll see this and raise:

We would all do well to quit caricaturing each other's liturgies and work (what follows is nothing personal at all, Dr. Ostermann, just opportunistic -- you raise a ton of excellent points).

Anyone who thinks that working in the EF just a matter of opening up the Graduale, singing what's there, and going home, and that this will be fine, and loved, and adored, is in for a very rude awakening when they first step foot in the loft of their very own FSSP parish or what have you.

Ritual form aside, the People of God and the ministri Dei lurk wherever church music is carried out and, with highs and lows and all the ins-between, it is as valid and true as ever what Aristotle held -- Man is a political animal. All of us must deal, to some extent, with these things - complicated work environments, hostility, politics, and the like.

I have a strong preference for the older Mass. I don't look down my nose at the new or those who worship in it. I have worked in and still work in the context of both.

Maybe it's hopeless subjectivism or aestheticism, but one of my favorite ways to think about it is to take note of the liturgical and musical moments that are possible, that make sense, in each liturgy. It is the moments, more than the rites as a whole, that I would miss so much, were the permanent kibosh ever to be put on the TLM, moments like:

(1) A polyphonic Kyrie wafting over a kneeling congregation at prayer, the priest and servers busy at their work, the beauty of the music energizing and electrifying the moment - filling an active silence - rather than holding the people and priest hostage as they patiently wait for Palestrina to get done with it already.

(2) ut supra, applied to the Sanctus & Benedictus

(3) The beauty of the pride altar servers take in their work, having mastered a very rigorous and precise set of tasks, and executing them beautifully. As a previous pastor once observed (not a traditionalist himself, but he said the old Mass): "When I add solemnity and servers to the Ordinary Form, my job as a celebrant gets harder. At a Solemn High Mass, my job as celebrant is easier, and all the assistants and ministers free me and let me simply pray the Mass." People don't understand how practical the tradition so often was -- which is why adopting elements of it in hodgepodge fashion for show just comes off as a strange and clunky affectation.

(4) Hearing the Gradual, Alleluia, and Sequence unfold as an unbroken kaleidoscope, in the correct order, as they seem so often to have been intended to by those who wrote them.

und so weiter...

As a Catholic, I feel privileged to help God's people pray and to sing in His house.

As a musician, I am still too self-conscious and awkward as a human being to enjoy a performance as a performance.

What I'm there to do is to be a small part of a puzzle that brings a beautiful moment of ritual prayer into being so that nature corresponds to the grace that is being bestowed upon it in that moment. I'm in the groove at the old Mass. That happens like it happens at a Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, or at least it can happen.

In my experience, the Novus Ordo is never groovy like that, it doesn't have good "flow", even though there are certainly moments of prayer, reverence, and beauty to be found in many places that worship in that way.

But, looking at what our Protestant brethren of the separation have descended into... I suppose I'll be grateful in some measure for even the pretense of ritual action.

"When I add solemnity and servers to the Ordinary Form, my job as a celebrant gets harder. At a Solemn High Mass, my job as celebrant is easier, and all the assistants and ministers free me and let me simply pray the Mass."
I think that captures it very well in 1570 they made the task of the celebrant (sine qua non) as easy as possible. Focus on his awesome role, and his unworthiness, no/zero interaction with the congregation. That is contrary to the exposition of the texts demanded by Session XXII of the Council of Trent and also of course is contrary to the plain meaning of words like "Orate, fratres ...".
NB the list of disobedience to VII would be longer.