The Ranums' Panat Times

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"French" cahiers for 1674 

Charpentier's compositions for the Guises for this year continue to reflect Mlle de Guise's devotion for the Virgin. And one can almost "see" the doldrums that had settled in at the Hotel de Guise: new preludes for existing pieces. This year saw Mme de Guise testing her wings at court, where she was working her way into the Queen's circle and was spending little time in Paris. It therefore does not seem very likely that Charpentier composed these preludes for her. But I often wonder whether it was Mme de Guise, rather than Mlle de Guise, who was involved in the re-use of H 312 from cahier VIII, for two countertenors. The existence of this prelude seems, of course, to poke a big hole in my hypotheses that the Guise music is in the French notebooks while non-Guise works are in the Roman ones. Still, I persist in thinking that there is a logical explanation for this reuse of a work written for Easter 1672, which must have been done with the approval of the persons who originally commissioned it. For the wonderful tale of the organ crisis at the Mercy, see my article in the Bulletin Charpentier.

Date	Work	Performers
	cahier 7, continued
spring	H 509 Symphonie devant Regina daily vespers and lauds, Easter to Pentecost; written for H 16 of cahier 2	2 tr
	H 510 Prélude	2 tr
March 25, Easter	H 511 Pour O filii	2 tr
	H 512 Prélude	2 tr
April 14-21	H 513 Messe pour plusieurs instruments au lieu des orgues	different instruments
	cahier 8
	H 159 Laudate Dominum omnes gentes (ps. 116) vespers on Monday, little office of Virgin, Pentecost, Trinity	bd  hc  b  2 tr
	H 20 Sub tuum præsidium daily vespers and complins (H 159 and H 20 are written in the same ink, which contrasts markedly with the ink for the instrumental mass that precedes them.)	bd hc b