He has to throw in junk like "Gift of Finest Wheat" from time to time for the few but noisy Kum-ba-ya crowd (we do have a few - and if folks want horrible stuff for their funerals, we oblige gladly and without complaining). And the parish has been using that awful Haagen "Massive Cremation" for years . .. he's plotting to introduce substitutes when choir practice begins again in the fall. Anybody familiar with the "Danish Mass"? I don't know it, but if our choirmaster thinks it's good, it's OK.
Here's my gripe: why do the printers of the Missalette feel they have to change the words of all the hymns EVER so slightly? I have been in Episcopal choirs since age 6, I can sing the first verse of every hymn in the 1940 hymnal from memory (and most in the 82), and with the tried and true ones like "Praise Ye the Lord" and "Crown Him With Many Crowns" I know all the verses from memory. So when they ring in a different word here and there, it drives me NUTS (I always realize it as the word is marching automatically out of my mouth and it's too late to get it back . . . )
This happens to me all the time!
I think it's often a copyright issue-the music is in the public domain but the words may not be.
In other cases, it's something stupid-like, for example, in "We Gather Together" the missalette cuts the line, "Ordaining, Maintaining His Kingdom Divine" because (according to our CM) only bishops can ordain (OK, not stupid-really, really stupid).
Maybe its a copyright thing? The varied hymns drive me crazy too. "All Glory, Praise, and Honor, To You Redeemer King" just doesn't sound right.
I'm not familiar enough with the english Nervous Disorder plainchant masses, although I have heard of the two you mention.
Aren't there plainchant settings in English in the 1982 Hymnal? Why not use those?
Two reasons for text changes: 1) PC; 2) Copyright money.