The propers are really designed as something for the choir to sing while the congregation does something more contemplative: e.g., (a) watch the entrance procession; (b) meditate on the first reading; (c) observe the gospel procession; (d) observe the offertory procession and the priest's preparation rites; (e) receive Holy Communion.

Simplex or psalmtone propers are a stepping-stone, though one for the choir, not the congregation: choirs can sing them with the eventual goal of having the choir sing the full, authentic Gregorian melodies.

I use the Tietze antiphons regularly. We have a weekly printed worship aid, and licensing permissions from the required publishers. For those parishes (like mine) that simply aren't ready or willing to take the step into the chanted propers, I find them to be great. I frequently re-set the words to more familiar tunes when he uses less-than-familiar ones.

Ideal? No, but nothing short of the chant is anyway. It's certainly better than the myriad of things you hear out there.

I've toyed with the idea of chanting the introit (in Latin) just prior to the procession, and then singing the Introit Hymn during the procession- but that seems weirdly redundant....

Adam, I have done that a few times (with another choir member who also loves chant) between Easter and Pentecost this past year and hope to do it again when our choir starts again in September. We have only done it when the choir sings {the 1st., 3rd., and (when applicable) 5th. Sundays of the month at the 11:15 AM Mass (the parish's "High Mass")}. It is just part of a plan to expose the congregation to chant so it can be gradually incorporated into the liturgy. The two weeks give us plenty of time to prepare the Introit on our own; we take about 5-10 minutes to work through it before Mass.

Redundant? Perhaps, although I think our congregation just thinks it's part of the prelude. But I have notice they are a little more settled before Mass when we have done this.

Just another "brick".

Adam, I have a WIP that can help, an Excel spreadsheet that correlates the NO propers to the Anglican Use Gradual (neumatic notation) and the Burgess-Palmer English Gradual (modern notation). My 'work church' is Episcopal, so Anglo-Catholic in liturgical praxis that if one couldn't hear the language, one would think it's Missa Cantata. E-mail me if you'd like a copy.

A chant from the Graduale may be beatiful and more complex, but there's something very moving about prayer sung to a moderately elaborated and reiterated tone. That's why it's so deeply affecting in the Office and its Anglican equivalent. The simpler option need not be second best; unless it's done well, the more complex certainly is.

Yes, Doug, there really are conflicts and even contradictions among the liturgical documents.

The proper chants of the Graduale Romanum are complex material and seldom repeated, so I'm taking it that they are not designed for the whole congregation to sing. Those chants are listed in the Ordo Cantus Missae (a book which is part of the Missale Romanum), so they have official recognition as the authentic Gregorian melodies for the texts. Following the papal and conciliar teaching on plainchant, it's fair to say that the Church considers them the ideal music, which should be fostered. The Graduale Simplex, on the other hand, was prepared at the request of the Council, with less complex material, "for use in smaller churches" where singers are not yet ready for performing the authentic chants.

As you indicate, GIRM 48 lists four options for the introit: (1) schola and people alternating; (2) cantor and people alternating; (3) the people; (4) the schola alone.

Yet the full Gregorian introits are not really structured for alternatim singing, and the only part that the people can sing easily, practically speaking, is the Gloria Patri after the psalm verse [I have heard this done, and it's a bit imbalanced to do it that way, but it exists]; so options 1,2, and 3 are just not consistent with the use of the full Gregorian repertoire which the Popes and the Council want. So the usual thought of treating the four options as an order of preference becomes implausible.

In the light of that, I presume the GIRM was written by people with no idea about the Gregorian repertoire. [ And people call us an organized religion! :-) ]

Oh: to Doug's question: the people should be singing the Ordinary (introductory dialogue, Kyrie, Gloria, gospel dialogue, Credo, Prayer of the Faithful, preface dialogue, memorial acclamation, Sanctus, Our Father, Agnus). That's plenty to sing. And people happily sing the dialogues; they love to sing the Our Father. It only requires a little effort from priests. If people have not been singing those, but only singing hymns at the entrance, offertory, communion, and recessional, they start to think that those constitute the people's sung part of the Mass. No wonder they will fear, when the choir starts to sing propers, that the people's part is being taken away. That's an erroneous thought; instead, the people's part is in the Mass Ordinary, while the Propers really are meant for the choir. This fear and this misunderstanding arise because of misleading pastoral practice. It's a pastoral mistake to not sing the Mass ordinary parts.

Priests need to be man enough to sing their parts of the Mass, so that the people can sing the dialogues. Everything is built on that (see the degrees of sung musical participation in Musicam sacram, 1967, para. 28-31).

Let me add, by the way, that I certainly don't believe that the congregation should necessarily sing every possible note at every possible moment (as Jeffrey Tucker over at the Chant Café claims is a pathological obsession of some liturgy planners). Without having had to fill any liturgy planning shoes, it seems like a transition from a rigid rubric of four hymns to incorporating propers could be made much more simply if there were singable music to assist with the switch. But maybe that is going about things in a ridiculous sequence...

I've added a link to Musicam sacram to my post above, in case anyone hasn't seen the relevant portions; they present a model in which to present the various sung parts of the Mass, to progressively lead the people to singing more of the liturgy, starting with portions of the Mass ordinary.

Eft: thanks for the suggestion! I'll get right on it. Well, not right now, but if you want to get started, go for it. :-) Maybe you can try the "Opera" browser?

Chonak, I have never been to a parish that didn't sing most of the Ordinary every Sunday, so I guess it never occurred to me in my theoretical world that one wouldn't be doing that already. And priests not doing their part? I don't even want to touch that.

So laying all that aside, and laying aside the matrix of music options and human groupings, is there something objectionable about writing new settings of the GR texts? This seems consistent with MS #33 and the GIRM (2000 + USA adaptations, if we insist on calling it that) #48.

I am extremely curious about this for one primary reason:

There was a brief period in the 1920s and '30s Paris--and I have published an essay about this in a collection called Messiaen the Theologian--when composers and theologian-philosophers thought very hard and wrote extensively about how to capture the Gregorian spirit in new compositions. It is a shame that this intellectualizing has been lost. As the essay argues, there was a deeply felt connection between the restoration of Gregorian chant and the restoration of Thomist philosophy promulgated by Leo XIII in Aeterni Patris (1879). Once influential theologians like de Lubac and Balthasar arrived on the scene (after being marginalized by the once-powerful Thomists), it spelled the end for Thomism (and thus indirectly for the Gregorian spirit). Although groups like the CMAA are attempting to re-restore Gregorian chant after VII, a concomitant re-restoration of Thomism was effectively put to an end by Pope JPII, thus losing a vital intellectual connection. This last point describes the present situation, and what we lack is the élan with which the French (led by Jacques Maritain) approached questions of new compositions. Neo-Thomism was precisely that: facing the contemporary world with the argumentation, style, and most importantly, the spirit of Aquinas. Why is there no neo-Gregorianism? What I see, compositionally speaking (and liturgically, for that matter), is too often antiquarianism that is passed off as authenticity. It is not the Gregorian spirit, if you will.

"or in another musical setting."

This is a special phrase. I came across the explanation recently (see last two paragraphs).

Thirty-Five Years of the BCL Newsletter 1965-2000 (page 172)

1969-mar USCCB BCL Newsletter Vol 5 No 3
[...]
Responses from the Holy See: First Series
[...]
Archbishop Dearden also announced that the Holy See confirmed the decision of the American
bishops regarding approved English translations of the Simple Gradual and of the lectionary.

The Simple Gradual is a book of alternative antiphons or refrains for use at Mass in place of
the chants between the biblical readings and at the beginning, offertory, and communion
of the Mass. This vernacular translation of the antiphons was prepared by the International
Committee on English in the Liturgy. These refrains may be sung in conjunction with any of
the translations of the psalms already approved by the U.S. bishops: Confraternity of Christian
Doctrine, Jerusalem Bible, Grail psalter.

The new texts have already been made available to composers, editors and publishers. Their
actual use is optional and official regulations provide for flexibility in choice of antiphons
and psalm verses.

A related decision of the National Council of Catholic Bishops also confirmed by the Holy See allows
the use of similar collections of psalms and antiphons as substitutes for the present chants of Mass.
The text of the decision refers to "other collections of psalms and antiphons in English ..., including
psalms arranged in responsorial form, metrical and similar versions of psalms, provided they
are used in accordance with the principles of the Simple Gradual, and are selected in harmony
with the liturgical season, feast, or occasion." This provides a wider choice of music for congregational
singing at Mass as alternatives to the fixed texts of the Roman Missal.

In English the principal collections of this kind are the Gelineau, Somerville, and Deiss psalms.
The reason for this decision was to permit substitute texts to be used without waiting for
the composition of musical settings of the antiphons of the Simple Gradual.

Finally, the Holy See confirmed the U.S. bishops' approval of the biblical translations of the Confraternity
of Christian Doctrine version, the Jerusalem Bible, and the Revised Standard Version (Catholic edition)
for use with the projected lectionary of readings at Mass. [...]

EDIT: fixed typos

Adam, if my memory serves, doesnt Tietze just give recommended tune names? It would of course be nice to have them set under notes, and between hard covers. I'm not sure about the single band-aid pull (has any congregation ever gone Haas to GR?) but that might be even more reason to skip the schola's punt option.

...even if they never venture beyond the Graduale Simplex,
they are singing what the Church has officially asked.

EFT, I admit I'm taking potshots, provoked at insinuations from certain quarters that offertories by Mozart, Messiaen & Stravinsky have no place in an ideal scheme. Just remember the last of the ancient Chinese curses: "May your wish be granted".

In my edition of the Tietze book, the texts are set under notes of a fully harmonized (4-part, European Protestant style) hymn. Very Episcopalian (and Lutheran, for that matter). A few have alternate settings, and a few have additional suggestions.
So if you wanted a different tune, you would have to create the score yourself.
And- not all of the texts are particular popular meters- a few of them have been hard to find anything vaguely well-known to fit to.

"ICEL translated those texts into English and they were approved.
By Flowing Waters is the Simplex melodies with those approved texts.
Despite the approved translation, nobody else has put those texts to their own melodies,
even though the set of texts is a much smaller than the Graduale Romanum."

Bingo! It seems worth a try.

Doug Shadle--

Can you email me? (address found in my account)

I recently set the introits for the four Sundays of Advent in English to popular advent hymn tunes, then an appropriate psalm tone for the verse. I haven't had a chance to use them but hopefully they will work.