For 16 years Jennifer Pascual, the music director for St. Patrick’s Cathedral, has arrived early on Easter Sunday, often at 6:30 a.m., just after sunrise, when she could still manage to find parking on East 51st Street.

At 9 a.m., she would try to squeeze in one more rehearsal with the choir. By 10:15, with more than 2,000 worshipers filling the church, she would lead the singers, the organist, a brass quintet, a percussionist, musicians on the harp and the flute in an exultant liturgical performance that is the musical pinnacle of the cathedral’s year.

But not this year.

The doors of St. Patrick’s are now locked to the public. The coronavirus pandemic means that this Easter Sunday there will be no congregants in the pews, no choristers to conduct, no sharp retorts from the brass to herald the New Testament’s recounting of the resurrection of Christ.

This year, the roster of musicians is now down to two — a cantor and an organist — and there will only be two Masses on Sunday, not the usual eight or nine. But the 10 a.m. Mass, to be led by the Cardinal Timothy Dolan, will be televised and streamed live, a broadcast that is likely to draw a significant audience. Fewer than 600 people would tune in to watch the cathedral’s Sunday Mass streams before the pandemic, said Joe Zwilling, a spokesman for the Archdiocese of New York — and that number was up to more than 100,000 on Palm Sunday.

“We are doing it for broadcast, yes, but we do miss the people in the pews,” said Dr. Pascual, who came to St. Patrick’s in 2003 as its first female music director. “It’s kind of odd to be doing Mass and doing it to an empty cathedral. You look out there and there’s nobody there.”

Even Dr. Pascual may just stay home on Sunday, as her two associate organists will be on hand to lead “Jesus Christ Is Risen Today” and other traditional hymns and ancient chants.

It will be that kind of Easter for congregations and their music directors across the country. In South Carolina, a Presbyterian choir in Columbia is planning to keep only a few members on hand, all spaced apart for appropriate social distancing, The Post and Courier reported. And in Georgia, a pastor is planning to hold an in-person service — drive-in style, with churchgoers staying inside their parked cars.

At St. Patrick’s, a historic landmark that attracts more than five million visitors a year, the preparations for Easter begin months ahead, and involve music for several liturgies.

On Holy Thursday, the music is a bit quieter and more introspective, said Jeanne Holcomb, a member of the choir for 17 years. On Good Friday, she said, they move on to Joseph Haydn’s “The Seven Last Words of Christ.” By Saturday and Sunday: “Lots of hallelujahs,” she said. “It’s really, really fun to sing. You really let it all loose after those solemn services.”

The highlight of her week, though, usually comes well before Masses begin, at the final rehearsal on Wednesday night.

“We’d go for hours and hours, because we have to rehearse everything for Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday,” Ms. Holcomb said. “And everybody’s like, ‘Oh my Lord, this is taking so long.’ But at the end of it, we just feel so accomplished.”

“It’s a lot of music,” she added. “But it’s all so good.”

In past years, Ms. Holcomb, who lives in Brooklyn, would usually cap off the weekend at the cathedral with a visit to her sister in New Jersey on Easter Sunday. But she will spend this year’s holiday the same way as everyone else, following Mass from afar.

“I’ll watch the live stream, but otherwise, I’m singing by myself just for fun,” she said. “It’s a bummer, but then so many people have it worse. I just miss it, that’s all.”

For her part, Dr. Pascual will still play the organ on Saturday night for the Easter vigil, which will also be streamed live online. Dr. Pascual has always felt a particularly strong attachment to the vigil, and to the weekend as a whole — her last name has roots in the Latin word for Easter. But this year no one will be baptized or confirmed at the cathedral during the Saturday vigil, as is usual, and the deacon who typically leads a portion of the liturgy is stuck in Portugal because of the virus.

Dr. Pascual ordinarily spends most of her Easter at the church, playing the cathedral’s towering pipe organ herself for the Masses at noon and 1 p.m.

“Sometimes they would throw in a 2 p.m.,” Dr. Pascual said, “if there’s really still thousands of people waiting.”

Later there would be desk work to be done before finally heading home to Wood-Ridge, New Jersey. After she left, typically, there would still be two more Masses to go — one in Spanish at 4 p.m., another in English at 5:30 — when her two associate organists would usually take the reins.

“We normally have thousands and thousands of tourists coming through the door, and sometimes a line that wraps around the cathedral for people trying to get into Mass,” Dr. Pascual said. “It’s kind of sad that we don’t have that this year.”

Dr. Pascual, who earned her doctorate in organ performance from the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, said she has missed the presence of the choir in services this week the most. “Not having them help provide the music is a huge loss,” she said.

Still, she predicted, even reined in a bit by the necessities of public health, the music of Easter will be a great balm to many souls.

“St. Augustine said, ‘He who sings prays twice,’” she said. “So hopefully what we do helps people to get through this pandemic and gives them some sense of faith and hope.”