The Ranums' Panat Times

I would like to explain my reasoning about the thought-provoking gros cahier.

Wiley Hitchcock's presentation of the gros cahier in Recherches (vol. 23, 1985, p. 33) excises some of the works and places them in their current position in the Mélanges. As a result, reconstructing the original gros cahier on the basis of his article becomes an exercise in guesswork. I therefore begin this Musing with a color-coded transcription of fols. 13v-14 of the "Mémoire" of 1726 (BnF, Musique, Rés Vmb ms. 71):

 

dans un gros cahyer

domine salvum h. C. et T. motet pour le vierge idem Stabat mater pour des religieuses dans le cahyer de l'Epitaphe de mr Charpentier prelude et flutes Elevation O Sacramentum &c. dixit dominus Ps. pour le port royal Magnificat pour le port royal Dixit dominus en faubourdon Magnificat en faubourdon grand motet pour la nativité de nostre Seigneur, grande Symphonie, marche des bergers &c. Simphonie pour la nuit de noël une suite du motet de Ste. Cecile Elevation pour le jour de la toussaint hymne de Ste. Ursule Salve regina a 3. voix pareilles domine salvum a 3. voix pareilles motet pour un confesseur motet pour un confesseur non pontife Lauda Sion a voix Seule motet pour tous les Saints ave regina coelorum Elevation o amor o bonitas, a voix Seule Motet pour le Carême motet pour le st. Sacrement Egridimini filiae Sion avec flutes Elevation pour angelicus a voix seule Simphonie pour le motet de st. Louis plusieurs pieces motet pour sainte Anne

An observation about the titles highlighted in black:

The titles of the pieces shown in bold black type correspond to the works published by the Motets mêlés de simphonie published by the composer's nephews, Jacques Édouard and Jacques-François Mathas, in 1709.

Since eight of the published pieces are missing from the Mélanges, and since four other pieces survive in the Mélanges, we can be quite certain that the eleven scores listed among the contents of the gros cahier by the compiler of the "Mémoire" of 1726, were copies of Charpentier's originals, made at the request of Édouard and Mathas.  That is to say, someone who was expert in music — judging from the handwriting it was neither Édouard nor Mathas — first marked up Charpentier's originals with red pencil, made copies, and passed the copies to Roussel, who engraved the Motets mêlés.)

Curiously, one piece included in that little volume is missing from the above list: Pour Saint Augustin mourant, H. 419. During the binding process of the late eighteenth century (or was it there all the while, unmentioned by the compiler of the "Mémoire") this work found its way into cahier "d" discussed below. This suggests that although the work was not mentioned by the compiler (he omitted a number of works from his inventory), this piece for St. Augustine was probably more or less a neighbor of the copies used by the engraver of the Motets mêlés.

The above illustration shows the top portion of one of the crossed-out pieces (fol. 93 of vol. 2) where the person in charge of preparing copies for the engraver wrote: "Il faut marquer 4^e. Motet." Compare the t's and r's of this hand with the same letters in the signatures of Jacques Édouard and Jacques-François Mathas, below.

In other words, in 1726 these copies that had been made for Édouard and Mathas back in 1709 (and returned to them by Roussel) were subsequently tucked into the gros cahier. These copies appear to have been discarded by the royal librarians when the Mélanges were bound — doubtlessly because the hand was not Charpentier's.

A observation about the titles highlighted in red:

What else was in the gros cahier? First of all, there was what the compiler of the "Mémoire" described as a "cahier" containing the Epitaphium in the composer's own hand, plus a Stabat mater for nuns. (Both works prove to have been copied onto Jesuit paper.) The binders for the Royal Library eventually inserted this thin cahier (which Hitchcock calls cahier "a") into Volume 13. In other words, the Epitaphe and the Stabat mater constituted a distinct "cahier," almost certainly a cluster of nested sheets (perhaps attached at the fold with a string?) that was was part of the bundle known as the gros cahier. Now, this slim cahier contained one of Charpentier's most personal compositions, his musical epitaph! In other words, the mere presence of the Epitaphe in the gros cahier suggests that the gros cahier did not contain the "ordinary" and "extraordinary" commissions that the composer did for money. Rather, the cahier as a whole appears to have contained works he composed for himself. (This would help explain why Jacques Édouard filed the copies made for the Motets mêlés into this gros cahier that was not related to either the "cahiers françois" (his ordinary work) or the "cahiers romains" (his extraordinary commissions).

An observation about the titles highlighted in blue:

Another nested cluster of pages (forming a group that Hitchcock labeled cahier "d") was likewise part of the gros cahier. It too had been copied out onto Jesuit paper. Since Charpentier wrote two of these works "for Port-Royal" (where the composer's sister Marie was a nun), these specific pieces — and doubtlessly the contents of the entire cahier? — can scarcely have been part of his "ordinary" obligations as a new composer to the Jesuits. They could, of course, conceivably have been "extraordinary" commissions for the final months of in 1687, for example from the Abbess of Port-Royal. When the nested sheets of this cahier were bound in the late eighteenth century, an inner sheet containing two pieces en faubourdon apparently was removed, hence the gap between the two clusters of blue entries that is so conspicuous in the above excerpt from the "Mémoire."

I earlier alluded to a myster surrounding today's cahier "d": the compiler of the "Mémoire" made no mention of the first work in Hitchcock's cahier "d": Pour St. Augustin mourant (H. 419), which was published in the Motets mêlés in 1709.

Some conclusions about the gros cahier:

In other words, the gros cahier did not consist of eight or nine neatly folded sheets of folio paper, one inside the other, like almost all the composer's other cahiers. Rather, it was a bundle where the copies made for Édouard and Mathas juxtaposed thin cahiers or loose sheets in Charpentier's own hand. (If there were in fact loose sheets in this bundle, that would help explain how the motet pour Sainte Anne, apparently H. 315, made its way to the head of cahier 9 when the manuscripts were bound in the late eighteenth century.)

Above all, all the available evidence about the works in this gros cahier suggests that the contents were not commissions done for money, but works for the composer, his family, his friends.