It's upstaging the Holy Sacrifice and not adding to it in any way.

In the Classical and Romantic era (from 1750-1900 and composers like Mozart, Beethoven, etc.), the music used at Mass began to get exceedingly bombastic, adding brass, strings, and . And it was being performed as liturgical music, especially in Mozart's native Austria and in Italy.  But most of it (90%) has no place in the Mass because it was distracting from the Holy Sacrifice and turning it into a spectacle.

This is why St. Pope Pius X released Tra le sollecitudini in 1903 and mandated a worldwide return to Gregorian chant because it accompanied the liturgy and didn't overshadow it.

The schola director is overshadowing the liturgy by trying to show off with this practice. Even then, the people cannot understand his direction. The average trained musician will get about 4 weeks exposure to Gregorian chant, and even then, none of it is singing it or learning to read it -- simply the beginning of Western liturgical music and how important the Church's chant was in that role.

But your average untrained musician will not understand an arsis or thesis (conducting chant and its stress).  That would be the equivalent of asking a native, monolingual English speaker to read Tolstoy in Russian. They'll get it by ear. They do not need this pretentious loon in the front acting like he knows what he's doing.

Yes, that's exactly my point. There were musical practices that greatly took away from the Mass back then, but Pope Pius X brought Gregorian chant back to eliminate those practices. Ironically, he is using Gregorian chant to distract from the Mass.

It is such a distracting practice. They don't need Flappity-flap-flap-flap in the front. They need him in the loft, upstairs. He needs to stay up there.

Never experienced even a lick of that in St. Cloud. My Society chapel in all things, music included, has never been anything but anti-Conciliar. And I've been there for 3 years, parishioner, singing and directing the choir.

This is a single chapel doing one thing. And doing it very badly.

Active participation is not the problem, it’s the new theology.  Pope Pius XI and XII, both solid and true Popes were moving the laity to much more active participation.  

What does active participation mean to you? How does it take place? By your response, I think your have the Novus Ordo mindset on what it means. To you active participation means standing and singing and responding, like the choir and the altar servers. That's a total novelty.
Someone could be singing all the songs and responding for the altar server like in the Novus Ordo, yet they are internally thinking about the cute girl in the mini-skirt and tight top in front of them, or thinking about the Sunday football game coming up in 2 hours.
Meanwhile an elderly lady could be sitting during the whole mass without not making a sound but really active in conversation with Our Lord through the mass and her missal. That is real active participation.