Let our hearts be lifted high!

It is a truism in musical theater that one sings when the emotion is too great to be conveyed in words.
This (new to me) blog NAILS why the Preface Dialogue ought, above all, (or at least above most other things,) be sung:

http://englishchemicaltheatre.blogspot.com/2008/07/sursum-corda.html

The Western, Catholic Church has a glorious musical heritage stretching back as far as it’s incorporation as the Roman state religion by Emperor Constantine. The sublime chants of the Gregorian canon are early examples of a wonderful tradition that has included the polyphony's of the fourteenth century , medieval folk carols and the celestial dramas contained in Requiem masses by Mozart, Faure and others. The schismatic churches of Northern Europe have also produced a heritage of achingly beautiful liturgical music, which points to this being a true European tradition of transcendence through music. ...
Why then have so many Catholic churches become havens for the sort of banal liturgical warbling that seem more appropriate to the most shallow and nontraditional outcrops of Protestantism? For me an important part of the order of mass is the exultation “Sursum Corda!” lift up your hearts… This one phrase sums up the urgent yearning for the divine that fuels the sacrifice of the Mass. Accordingly, liturgical music needs to be both uplifting and inspiring. In short, the music needs to be symbolic of the raising of the mind and heart towards heaven. Much modern liturgical music simply doesn’t do this. The example I came across yesterday was... a monstrosity of quasi folk chords wrapped around a distorted liturgical script, written down in the late 1970s. Looking through the Catholic “Hymns Old and New” will yield many similar cringe worthy examples of late twentieth century innovation.
I have no intention of criticising the musicians and choir who put their all into the music yesterday, nor the many in the congregation who no doubt got great enjoyment from the performance. These people are not “liberals”. They are devout mainstream Catholics following the Zeitgeist current in the Church. Those at fault are the Church leaders and lay committees who have allowed and encouraged such a gross distortion of the precious legacy of sacred music bequeathed to us by tradition. It was quite obvious yesterday that the presiding Priest (who was not the usual parish incumbent) was getting increasingly frustrated at the irritations of the sung liturgical elements and after a while made no effort to join in with them....
I myself was tempted to follow the precedent set by the great Tolkien. The author’s grandson recalls going to mass with his Grandad in the early 1970s, shortly after the introduction of the Novus Ordo mass. Whilst the congregation were quietly mumbling the English responses from their new missals, JRR ostentatiously persisted in belting out the traditional latin propers, much to the embarrassment of his young companion…