The Ranums' Panat Times

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Ranum News, prior to October 2006

Marc-Antoine Charpentier, un musicien retrouvé (Sprimont: Mardaga, 2005) recently arrived in the post. This collection of articles from the Bulletin Charpentier, edited by Catherine Cessac, contains a decade-worth of cutting-edge research on the composer. It doubtlessly is available from the Centre de Musique Baroque de Versailles. Patricia Ranum is honored to have her articles in this handsome volume.

To learn more you can
read about the book on the CMBV site
 and
Find out how to purchase the book

 

Ranum General News

January 1, 2004, the very first day of the Charpentier Year (the commemoration of the Tercentenary of Marc-Antoine Charpentier's death on February 23, 1704), Patricia finished printing out her self-published book, Portraits around Marc-Antoine Charpentier. It can be purchased online at:

http://www.ranum.com/pmr

or,  for a sharply reduced price, at Amazon.com

Read excerpts from scholarly reviews of Portraits

In addition:

For the past three years we have been busy with editing-writing projects that have taken a lot of time and kept us from "musing" or writing book reviews during our summers at Panat. We hope that will change in 2005! Those projects included:

  •  The revised and expanded edition of Orest's Paris in the Age of Absolutism is available from Pennstate Press (Univ. of Pennsylvania at State College, PA)
  •  Our edition of Guillaume Tronson's memoirs of the Fronde, was published by the Société de  l'Histoire de France
  •  As if that were not sufficiently satisfying, a manuscript entitled Voyage en Allemagne, Hongrie et Italie, 1664-1665,which Pat came upon in the British Library. (The manuscript is catalogued as: Add. 19,568 ― a detail that was omitted on the title page of the book and that will henceforth be shown on a little sticker). Pat identified  the author, a Jansenist priest named Charles Le Maistre, has just appeared in a lovely volume printed by L'insulaire, 13 rue Saint-Lazare, 75009 Paris. ISBN: 2 912268 08 7. It's a wonderful text; and despite its 590 pages, it's affordable. It may not longer be listed on Amazon.com of France (but don't use "Hongrie" in your search because they spelled it wrong! You should be able to find it by searching "Charles Le Maistre"), but we have learned that Michel Jullien, the publisher (13 rue Saint-Lazare) will soon be making the book available through the distribution system of another Parisian editor. We will keep you informed!
  •  Patricia's book, The Harmonic Orator has been available since early 2001. Here is  a link to the Pendragon website, so you can order it: http://www.pendragonpress.com. The book attracted the attention of Oberlin Conservatory, and Patricia was asked to explain this word-focused approach to the singers who were preparing Pancrace Royer's Le Pouvoir de l'Amour (1743) in January 2002. It was a gratifying experience, to work with these talented young people! In February 2005 she and Orest lectured French baroque music and French instrumental and vocal performance at Oberlin Conservatory, and now and then she is a consultant for both French and Latin declamation at the Peabody Conservatory of Baltimore.
  •  Orest published a little family document, Ithamar Stowe Chaffee's civil war journal, which historians, Chaffees and civil-war buffs can order by visiting "Our Publications."
  •  We also published a collection of letters written by the Beans and the Chaffees of Wisconsin and southern Minnesota, 1848-1903, also available through "Our Publications."

Along with all that mental work, we have spent a succession of delightful summers at Panat, with lots of gardening. The drought of 2003 reduced our gardening to a struggle to keep plants alive by giving them a glass or two of water each day. We won the battle: our brief visit to Panat in March 2004 revealed that the all the roses had survived, although we did lose a few of less native plants such as arborvitae. By May the roses were blooming magnificently, as if the drought had given them new vigor! The summer of 2005 was also dry, so after a splendid June the roses became protectively bald... but the lavenders and santolinas flourished. On one quite warm July evening we invited the villagers and all the people in the close vicinity who had been so welcoming when we first came to Panat, to a buffet campagnard  to celebrate our 40 years at Panat and our 50 years of marriage.

You who have visited Panat and lamented the maze of overhead power wires and poles, will be pleased to know that they have been buried and that we have stylish lampposts now. Our "Central Park" garden (situated in the middle of the village, just below the place in front of the chateau), which we hewed out of a wilderness of brambles five years ago, is coming along well and has improved the view from the upper village. It gives us great pleasure. Maybe you would enjoy seeing some pictures of Panat?