Before delving into liturgical apologetics, it may be beneficial to uncover the reasons that inform your pastor's reticence about increasing the number of sung Masses, insistence on seasonal choir breaks, etc. That may help determine how best to approach him with the information you seek from others here (even though none has been posted as of yet).

...it may be beneficial to uncover the reasons that inform your pastor's reticence about increasing the number of sung Masses, insistence on seasonal choir breaks, etc. That may help determine how best to approach him...

Thank you for pointing this out - yes, I don't intend to just waltz up to him and present him with arguments. The first part of my meeting with him is indeed intended to find out more of his mindset and principles behind his directives for us.

M. Jackson Osborn, my impression is that the Ordinariate would generally be more "High Church," or in the language of my original post, more in favor of High Mass mentality over Low Mass, compared to your average Catholic parish. I don't even care if the people in pews sing heartily - I think that can be a good thing, but is difficult to build up to and has its drawbacks - I just think it would be great if priests could catechize their parishioners in a way that supports a sung liturgy mentality over a Low Mass mentality (even if practically speaking the latter will be the majority by default).

The topic of the importance of Sung Mass over Low Mass was taken up by proponents of the Liturgical Movement in the decades preceding Vatican II; see, for example, Dom Lambert Bauduin's 1945 talk "Sung Mass, summit of parish life". It is notable that he does not actually cite Church documents to support his thesis, but instead mainly builds upon historical and theological arguments, as well as the notion that the parish Mass should be understood as being the local emanation of the Pontifical Mass.

As far as Church documents go, a 1946 article on the celebration of Mass at Dachau concentration camp invokes the authority of the Fulda Conference (ie, German bishops' conference) in saying that "Solemn Mass being the standard Mass, the uniting of the faithful with Low Mass should be modelled as closely as possible on the way they are united with Sung Mass", but does not provide a reference for this.

Things really seem to pick up in the mid-1950s. In 1956, the French bishops published their Directoire pour la messe which states (art. 188): "The ideal celebration remains Sung Mass; Said Mass, commonly called 'Low Mass', should therefore progressively give the Christian assembly the understanding of and taste for Sung Mass." The 1958 Instruction De musica sacra et sacra liturgia states (art. 26): "It is desirable that on Sundays and feast days, the parish or principal Mass be a sung Mass." And finally, the 1967 instruction Musicam Sacram (art. 27): "For the celebration of the Eucharist with the people, especially on Sundays and feast days, a form of sung Mass (Missa in cantu) is to be preferred as much as possible, even several times on the same day."

I remember being told a good many years ago now that Mass should always be celebrated in as "high" a manner as practically possible, once again (as I recall) because of the notion that the local Mass, in a diocesan setting, is essentially an emanation of the cathedral Pontifical Mass on which it should be modelled; obviously, that argument does not apply as clearly to the FSSP as to diocesan priests.

There is a book called “The Ceremonies of the Roman Rite Described” which provides some backup for what you’re trying to accomplish I believe. In the first paragraph of chapter 14 it says “…the sung liturgy is the norm for the Roman Rite and all departures from this norm are tolerated out of necessity;…”

I’m just beginning to read this myself, but thought I’d at least bring up the book. Good luck!

That being said, if you're in an FSSP parish then I'm not sure how much this would matter; I'm in a typical OF parish and I imagine the people singing is viewed differently.

riverofthenorth, At our parish, people sing the parts of the Mass...but probably not everyone, and those that do sing don't very loudly. I don't have anything whatsoever, in principle, against the idea of the people in the pews singing anything that they can. My hesitation (which is what spurred my comment above, which was just a brief reaction to MJOsborn's comment) is really practical, which I'm not going to get into here. All I will add is that I also see something wrong with people in the pews being silent at a sung Mass. I was at a sung Latin Mass once, not my normal parish at the time, and I was flabbergasted that no one even sang an "Amen" or "et cum spiritu tuo." (I think it is a little bit different at this parish now, fyi...this was a while ago.)

This is not only sound from a theological perspective but a practical one; it sacramentalizes the dialogue between Christ and his Church, and is the simplest, most repetitive music. It's actually imperative the people sing these things themselves...

I don't think I disagree with you...but I think what you're saying is kind of why I made the original post. Is there any Church document that spells this out, specifically mentioning the sung Liturgy? Or are you just inferring this from the theology of Christ and His Church? I'm aware that, in accord with the developing Liturgical Movement, as V2 gets closer there is more of an acceptance of this idea in the documents, but was this idea present at all before Vatican II, and before the 19th century?

Again, I'm not saying that what you wrote is wrong just because I can't find it in an older Church document. I'm just trying to figure out that this conclusion you've drawn with regard to the theology of the sung Liturgy (dialogue between priest and people = between Christ and his Church, etc.) is more of a modern development or if it was clearly spelled out a long time ago.

Thank you especially to Didymus and a_f_hawkins for your responses. I found Dr. K's article very good, and the comments below were extremely interesting in terms of seeing some people's mindset and perspective on the matter.

I'm also aware that changing the mindset is a very long term goal. I just don't think it can happen if a given parish hardly ever even has a sung Mass at all outside of the bare minimum (and not even the bare minimum here, as there are two months in the summer with none). So my short term goal is to find the principles behind our pastor's practice, and to work with him to increase the number of sung Masses while also building up at least the schola's mindset also (which here won't be too difficult...we just need more of them!).