True, but in the 19th Century, especially in France, there was a reaction against them in favour of a simpler style, followed by a more general reaction in the 20th.alan29 wrote:i) ... Trent's views on music didn't put Viennese composers off.)
My present PP does intone the odd chant requiring a two-tone "Amen" and will presumably learn the mew Missal chants. He has said that initially we are to learn the new Collegeville Mass, which though not Gregorian is chant-based, but that other settings may be introduced later. His choice has caused a bit of muttering among those whose preference would be for something livelier.alan29 wrote:ii) I wouldn't want to generalise. It will depend on there being someone capable of teaching them. I am sure you wouldn't count singing the odd 2-note Amen as fulfilling our leaders' wishes. That surely would be little more than a peremptory nod in the direction of our heritage.
I agree, both in terms of suspicion of black/white statements and in recognising the need for the people to feel ownership of the liturgy.alan29 wrote:iii) I don't exactly know what you mean, but I am as a rule suspicious of black/white, either/or statements. they often lead to (portray) the kind of polarisation that has caused much pain in the recent and not so recent past. However, for what its worth, by its very definition Liturgy is the people's work, ie something that belongs to them.
Back in the 1960s, when the revised Mass (with widespread use of the vernacular) was introduced, the Tridentine Mass was at the same time banned - presumably because otherwise many parishes would have conservatively stuck with the old form they were familiar and comfortable with. My memories pre-reform were of school Masses sung to Missa de Angelis or Orbis Factor or (being really trendy!) Gregory Murray. They were sung wthout much enthusiasm but accepted as a fact of life - that's all there was it seemed. I never heard any of this at Sunday Mass in my own parish, as of the four or five Masses each Sunday only one was sung (just as Nick says) and we never went to that one: instead I remember spoken Latin responses. Where I did come across chant in my own parish it was in the seemingly interminable Good Friday Solemn Liturgy.
Then the reform came: Mass continued to be spoken but the responses were in English. Hymns, initially a token one at the end of Mass but later more of a hymn sandwich, were introduced later. It was at student Masses where I found the widespread use of hymns (especially folk hymns) encouraged, though I don't remember many ordinaries sung then. In time, settings of the ordinaries did appear, many of them in paraphrased settings to make them more singable, in various styles and with various degrees of success.
The principal difference between today's reforms and those of 40+ years ago is that the genie is out of the bottle and in place of a few plainchant settings accepted as a fact of life there is a much greater variety of styles out there, with the Clapping Gloria and Israeli Sanctus still embraced with enthusiasm by some while being derided as trivial and unworthy by others. Settings like these are "owned" by the congregation in a way plainchant wasn't. The challenge facing us now is to enable Mass to continue to belong to the people while remaining true to the improved standards the Church is calling for.
Just as in the '60s, the currently used texts are being banned to stop people conservatively hanging on to what they know rather than face the perceived terrors of the unknown. The complication now is that at the same time there are two alternative permitted texts, perceived as belonging to fringe movements: the rehabilitated Tridentine rite and the Anglican one used by the Ordinariate. This gives a rather mixed message and weakens the exhortation to unite behind the new texts.
Many parish choirs are packed with people who either can't read music at all or are at "developing" levels of musical literacy, exactly the people who rely on musical memory rather than musical text for singing in their parish each week, and exactly the people you say the skill should come more easily to. 
The people in my Gregorian chant group all come from literate societies and one of them is fairly elderly. 
Introit and communion antiphons are certainly not hard for them to memorise, partly because they're quite memorable in the first place. 
Not one Scottish or Irish traditional singer, that I know personally, is illiterate and yet most of us have sumptuous repertoires of songs memorised. 
I see it as a form of mental laziness that protests because it wants instant satisfaction for minimum expenditure, wanting to rely on viewing half an A5 page of music for recall of a monophonic song 
If we are to provide real Gregorian chant propers in the liturgy, choirs cannot be enslaved to excuses for mental laziness. 
The idea that it's a bit too much for older people to learn a Gregorian Sanctus sounds so ageist! 
Especially with all these CDs around the house these days. 
Why do local councils bother running adult learning classes all year and offering OAP discounts on the courses if the old dears never remember anything they learn 