The Ranums' Panat Times

The summer of 2007 was incredibly rainy! The constant downpours and mists chased me from our garden to our big fireplace, where I pored over a volume that had just arrived: Les Manuscrits autographes de Marc-Antoine Charpentier, edited by Catherine Cessac and published by the Centre de Musique Baroque de Versailles (Wavre: Mardaga, 2007).

I have now finished posting my Musings about some of the articles in the volume. These Musings are about:

Re: Laurent Guillo's "Les papiers imprimés dans les Mélanges: relevés et hypothèses," pp. 37-54.

Guillo’s investigation of printed versus manuscript music staves in Marc-Antoine Charpentier’s autograph manuscripts gives scholars a firmer base for their speculations about when a given work was composed. Over the coming months I plan to present a few cases where his evidence ― combined with my findings about watermarks (and occasionally by C. Jane Gosine’s observations about Charpentier’s musical hand) ― provides important new information. These Musings represent my latest thoughts and observations about the papers used by Charpentier and how they permit us to fine-tune the chronology of his works. These cutting-edge Musings include:

A table that brings together PAP's, watermarks, and dates, which more or less replaces the earlier Concordance of Patricia Ranum's watermarks and Laurent Guillo's printed staves

A new date for cahier "II" and La Descente d'Orphée aux enfers (H.488)

The staves on Jesuit papers and the different datings of cahiers that they indicate

Some intriguing  patterns in the brands and printed staves of the papers Charpentier used

Some "red flags" and what they reveal: 4 papers whose position in the Mélanges diverges from the chronological order

           plus a recent Musing on some doubts about the presence of paper G/26 in cahier 22

Thierry Favier's "L'Atelier intérieur de Marc-Antoine Charpentier," pp. 83-100, which prompted me to comment upon some:

Troubling "time-slippages" in Thierry Favier's Continuum

and, a bit later, my observations about what appears to be a serious flaw in the presuppositions upon which Favier constructed his Continuum:

Size as an element in Thierry Favier's Continuum of Charpentier's handwriting

Gaëtan Naulleau's "François Couperin a-t-il menti deux fois? Le témoignage de Marc-Antoine Charpentier et l'énigme de la Sonate (H.548)," pp. 175-184. (click his name to access the Musing).