Papers Used

The Ranums' Panat Times

On what did I base my conjectures about the papers used by Charpentier, post-1687?

See also: L. Guillo on paper, for information about printed staves in Charpentier's manuscripts

Shortly after publishing this Musing, I realized how much my underlined conjectures about printed music paper conflict with Laurent Guillo's observation (pp. 318, 319) that "the majority" of Charpentier's papers have printed staves. He does not give a percentage, so I can at best deduce that the ratio of printed paper to hand-ruled paper is at least 51%, but perhaps considerably more. Nor do I know which volumes Guillo was studying when he found this clear "majority" of printed paper.

Guillo has called for a scientific and methodical study of the papers in Charpentier's Mélanges, and I applaud the proposal energetically. Yet here I am, sticking my neck out in a very unscientific and unmethodical way! Here I am, proposing that printed papers probably dominate in the notebooks made before mid-1687, and that hand-ruled ones probably dominate the notebooks made after mid-1687.

I have reasons for guessing this, but my reasoning can be neither scientific nor methodical , because no data about all the printed and all the hand-ruled papers is available. That day is far in the future. Until the day arrives, scholars will have to go on observing, deducing, reasoning, and trying to make sense of things, as best they can, on the basis of a judicious evaluation of the evidence. For if we stop stating our observations and our hypotheses, many investigative doors will slam shut and will stay shut until the scientific evidence, perhaps, provides a key that will reopen them. So, during this wait, I want to make scholars aware of the general and admittedly impressionistic picture that emerges when one looks at Table 1 in my Vers une chronologie (pp. 30-34, and my appendix, pp. 53 ff ). It is upon this picture that I based my underlined conjectures:

For the period 1670 to mid-1687, Charpentier filled roughly 694 folios in the Roman series of notebooks and 690 folios in the French series. That makes a total of 1384 folios; and if that total is divided in half (to determine the approximate number of pieces of paper used), the result is 692 pieces of paper, from a variety of manufacturers. Within the notebooks of that period, I identified 31 different papers — some of which, according to Guillo, have printed staves. Let us suppose, then, that just over half these papers are printed. That would mean that 16 papers are printed and 15 are not. I would not be surprised if the ratio was more like 20 printed and 11 not, because these are the years when Charpentier can be presumed to have received paper from a variety of patrons and suppliers. (Guillo showed that in general Charpentier used considerably more printed paper than the other sources he consulted, pp. 307-08). I'm not going to carry my unscientific statistics any further. I simply present them to give an idea of the really huge amount of paper that Charpentier used during those 17 years, and the great number of brands (i.e., watermarks) employed. Indeed, he changed paper so frequently that he rarely used any given paper for more than a full year. I calculate that he used something like 1.8 brands of paper per year.

For the Jesuit and Sainte-Chapelle years, the picture in my Table 1 changes radically. From mid-1687 on, Charpentier used only 7 types of paper in both series of notebooks combined. And, since so many notebooks are missing for those years, the total number of sheets of paper used is much lower than during the first 17 years of his career: 254 sheets in both series, between mid-1687 and his death in early 1704. Thanks to Laurent Guillo we know that all the papers in Vols. 5 and 12 are hand-ruled. Thus we know (see below) that the 54 sheets of paper that make up cahiers 63-75 are not printed. In other words, in those two volumes there are only 5 types of paper, 100% of which are not printed. Guillo's observations about the ratio of printed to hand-ruled papers clearly do not apply to isolated volumes; and it would be naive to imagine that this ratio would automatically apply to a given volume, for he was looking at the 28 volumes of the Mélanges as a whole. Indeed, this is the lesson to be learned from his statement on page 318 to the effect that two chronologically consecutive volumes (vols. 5 and 12, which contain cahiers 63-75, which span some 12 years) are made exclusively of hand-ruled paper.

But what about the Roman notebooks filled during the very same years (cahiers, LXI- LXXV), and where 4 of the 5 papers in Vols. 5 and 12 are to be found?

Those notebooks are made of 100 sheets of paper, and 5 different brands. In other words, for the period covered by cahiers 63-75 and LXI-LXXV, there are 150 sheets of paper and 6 brands. To attain the minimum 51% ratio of the printed papers for the totality of notebooks for these years, approximately 80 sheets in these Roman notebooks would have to be printed music paper. But are they? As my calculations show (below), 4 papers appear concurrently in both series of notebooks. And in the French notebooks these papers are always hand-ruled. Is it not likely, therefore, that these 4 brands of paper are likewise hand-ruled in the Roman notebooks? In other words, is it not likely that almost all of the papers in cahiers 63-75 and LXI-LXXV are hand- ruled? (I say "almost all," in order to take into account the 12 sheets of my paper "12," which could printed rather than hand-ruled, I have simply no way of guessing.)

It is, of course, possible that, at a given moment, Charpentier would have on his desk both a printed and a blank version of the same brand of paper. Nor can one rule out the possibility that, if he did have these two types of paper in his workroom, for some unexplained reason he used exclusively the hand-ruled paper in the French notebooks and was very careful to save the printed paper for the Roman series. But is that likely? In short, until the proposed scientific study of Charpentier's music papers comes into being and produces results, should scholars assume that there will be a minimum of 51% printed paper, year after year?

I personally think it would be unwise to allow our deductive and our observational powers to be overwhelmed by percentages obtained in the context of a preliminary overview of the printed paper industry as a whole. As my Table 1 shows clearly, until mid-1687, a large number of different brands of paper abound in Charpentier's Mélanges; but after that date the similijésuite paper reigns almost supreme, until paper "O" puts in its appearance circa 1698 (and is used to recopy some notebooks dating from the Jesuit years).

I got so interested in the papers of the Jesuit and Sainte-Chapelle years, that I jotted down the reasoning on which I based my hypothesis about these years. I of course had to proceed by deduction and analogy; and rightly or wrongly I assumed that, during the decade when Charpentier worked for the Jesuits, he always received the blank paper that was subsequently ruled by hand and that Guillo found in Vols. 5 and 12 — rather than having been supplied with both printed paper and blank paper. I also assumed that, in case the Jesuits did just happen to provide both printed and blank paper currently, Charpentier did not restrict the printed sheets to the Roman series of notebooks, and the hand-ruled paper to the French series.

These are, of course, arbitrary assumptions, but I made them for a special reason. I hope to pique the curiosity of scholars who have an opportunity to consult the actual Mélanges, vols. 22-27. Will a comparison between the staves in vols. 22-27, and the hand-ruled ones in vols. 5, 8-10 and 12, punch a hole in my hypothesis? If such a comparison were to show that the similijésuite paper is both printed and hand-ruled, that would be very exciting! And very interesting, because it would not only suggest that the Jesuits took some of the paper they supplied to Charpentier to a print shop and had staves printed on it, it would also suggest that Charpentier wanted things that way. In other words, that he wanted, or needed, some some sheets that were ruled by hand and some that were not.

Would the answer to such a conundrum (if it turns out to have taken place) lie in what Laurent Guillo writes about presentation copies? "The luxury manuscript," he points out, "never uses [printed paper]: no calligraphed source is copied out onto that sort of paper, nor is any manuscript destined to become a present for the person to whom it is dedicated, or for a patron. ... Likewise, the performance copy, made by a copyist for the use of singers or instrumentalists, only rarely uses printed paper." In other words, if it is determined that both printed and hand-ruled similijésuite paper appear in cahiers 63-75 and LXI-LXXV (and/or in cahiers 54-62 and LII/ "d"-LX), that would suggest that Charpentier used hand-ruled paper for the performance copies of his works (and for the copies that he presumably deposited in the music library at Saint-Louis), but used printed paper when composing and, sometimes, but not always, for his personal archives.

For what it is worth, here is the reasoning upon which I based my underlined hypotheses:
1) I do not know which papers used between mid-1687 and 1704 are printed; but I know which papers from that period are not printed. Laurent Guillo himself informed the public of this, p. 318: "some volumes are entirely made of hand-ruled paper, volumes 5, 12 or 13, for example." In other words, none of the papers in these volumes is printed.
2) Therefore: none of the papers in volumes 5 and 12 are printed. (The notebooks in these volumes are French cahiers 63-75.)
3) Therefore: none of the papers are printed in these notebooks, which contain music that Charpentier wrote during the last half of his tenure at Saint-Louis and during his mastership at the Sainte-Chapelle.
4) Therefore: my papers "M," "N," "O," "i" and the similijésuite paper are hand-ruled.
5) By analogy, all sheets of papers "M," "N," "O" and the similijésuite paper found in the Roman series of notebooks during these same years (cahiers LXI-LXXV) can, with reasonable certainty, be presumed to be hand-ruled.
6) That leaves only one paper in the Roman notebooks for these years that may be printed (but may be hand-ruled): paper "12," which is found in cahiers LXII and LXX.
Conclusion: it is quite likely that all but one of the papers in cahiers LXI-LXXV and cahiers 63- 75 are hand-ruled: the exception, if any, is paper "12."
The percentage of possibly printed paper in these notebooks can quickly be computed:
— The Roman notebooks contain 201 folios, but I am rounding that number down to 200 (on the assumption that the odd folio number is an indication that one folio was actually paginated by the eighteenth-century librarian, as sometimes occurs at the beginning or end of a cahier): 200 folios = 100 sheets of paper.
— The French notebooks contain 110 folios, but I am rounding that number down to 108 (because some notebooks prove to have an uneven number of folios, a sign that the librarian resorted briefly to pagination): 108 folios = 54 sheets of paper.
— There are 24 folios of paper "12": 24 folios = 12 sheets of paper.
— A bit of simple arithmetic: 100 + 54 = 154. And 154 minus 12 = 142. In short, 142 sheets of paper are known to be, or are strongly suspected to be hand-ruled, and 12 sheets just possibly may be printed (but may be hand-ruled).
— From this data, a percentage can be computed: 12 sheets = 8% of the sheets of paper in these two contemporaneous groups of notebooks.
Conclusion: At most, 8 % of the pages are likely to be printed. On the other hand, none of them may turn out to be printed.
This exercise can be carried a step further, to bring it all the way back to mid-1687, when Charpentier became the official composer of the Jesuits.
1) French cahiers 53-62 are made exclusively of similijésuite paper. These notebooks are made of a total of 51 sheets of paper, all of which can be presumed to be hand-ruled, like the similijésuite paper in cahiers 63-75.
2) Roman cahiers LII-LXII total 68 folios, but since there are a few odd-numbered notebooks, I am rounding the numbers down to 66 folios, or 33 pieces of paper.
3) All of the paper in the Roman notebooks is similijésuite, except for 4 sheets of my paper "11," in cahier LIV. In other words, 29 sheets of paper are similijésuite paper and can be presumed to be hand-ruled.
Once again some simple arithmetic permits us to determine the percentage of sheets in cahiers 53- 62 and cahiers LII-LXII that may be printed:
— Similijésuite sheets of paper: 51 + 29 = 80 sheets presumed to be hand-ruled, in the manner of vols. 5 and 13 (cahier "a").
— Paper "11": 4 sheets that just possibly may be printed.
— Subtract: 80 – 4 = 76.
Conclusion: 76 sheets are presumably hand-ruled, and 4 sheets may be printed.
To determine the probable percentage of printed papers used by Charpentier during his Jesuit and Sainte-Chapelle years, one need only combine the results of these two arithmetic problems:
— Number of sheets of paper presumed or known to be hand-ruled: 142 + 76 = 218
— Number of sheets that may be printed (but that may prove to be hand-ruled): 12 + 4 = 16
— The greatest probable percentage of printed sheets used by Charpentier from mid-1687 to 1704 would therefore be 7 %. But if paper "11" should prove to be hand-ruled, the percentage would drop to zero.

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