I think that Schutte wrote the best of the mmodern music, but I am sick of the same selections week after week. I wish that music directors would make a practice of mixing old hymns with new so that we have a variety of tempo, rhythm, and range.
As to Dan Schutte, I have often wondered where he is. I have asked around Milwaukee churches and no one seemed to know.
"Music had all but disappeared from regular parish masses before Vatican II."
I very much miss a twenty- to thirty-minute weekday Mass. You don't need hymns at every Mass.
"Unless it was a "high" Mass for a special occasion, such as Easter or Christmas, the standard was that NO music was offered and no hymns were sung. Add the prohibition against any hymns written by Martin Luther, and the Catholic Church was absent anything singable."
Which is exactly as it should be. The Catholic Church should not be imitating protestant services, and especially should not be singing music written by heretics.
Much better to have great music on special occasions than a steady diet of crap forced down your throat.
Actually, the main Sunday Mass, pre-Vatican II, was supposed to be a Sung Mass (Missa Cantata) while daily Masses were Low Masses. The "special occasion" Masses would have been Solemn High Masses which had a priest celebrant, a deacon, and a subdeacon and musical accompaniment. This was the ideal. It may not have been the reality in every parish.