The
Ranums'
Panat Times
Volume 1, redone Dec. 2014
Question B — Charpentier's cahiers: are they a sketch-book?
Return to the introduction to my
Musings about the word "Mélanges"
(This Musing dates from
circa 1995)
The next thought-provoking question that Jean Duron asked about Charpentier's music appeared in his edition of the Missa Assumpta est Maria, H. 11 (Editions du Centre de Musique Baroque de Versailles, 1994). As the part-books preserved at the Bibliothèque nationale show very clearly, Charpentier revised this mass several times during his tenure as music master of the Sainte- Chapelle. In other words, the score he copied out into the Meslanges certainly does not represent a first and final version. Duron therefore suggested that scholars might be wise to reconsider their assumption that Charpentier's notebooks contain primarily completed works. Are they instead, he asks, imperfect sketches that the composer had every intention of coming back to and revising again and yet again?
My reaction was: "Hm! that doesn't fit my picture of how Charpentier worked. There must be some other explanation for these repeated modifications to the part-books although only one score survives." That is to say, Charpentier's notebooks contain evidence that he revised some works, but he did this very methodically, crossing out the original version and adding a reference to remind himself (or his copyists) where the new version was to be found. But it is difficult to see how Jean Duron's observations about this particular mass can be turned into a blanket rule that applies to the bulk of his production. Many of Charpentier's works were written for specific events, and the version he copied out may have been performed only once and therefore represents the only version. Can we be sure that the fact that Charpentier's working part-books of the Assumpta mass do not match the score in his Meslanges tells us anything more than that, by the turn of the eighteenth century, the composer's health was failing and he had lost interest in keeping his personal archives up-to-date? Perhaps we should look at this apparent anomaly from a different angle and ask, for example: "Why this mass was revised so often over the years?"
The Assumpta mass cannot have been intended for the Sainte-Chapelle — even though the singers were from the Sainte-Chapelle — because upon the music master's death, the royal administration routinely confiscated all works he had composed for the chapel, as belonging to the king. To understand why this mass was revised, we must therefore search for a devotional event that probably took place within the precincts of the Palais, that involved the participation of the personnel of the Sainte-Chapelle, and that was repeated each August 15 (or during the octave that followed that feast day).
Jean and I corresponded about this issue and talked of writing an article jointly, for my Vers un chronologie only became available after the publication of Jean's edition of the Assumpta mass. The project was set aside for lack of time, not for lack of ideas. Indeed, goaded by Jean, I kept digging, and I think I have identified the group for which Charpentier wrote this mass; but finding the document that will prove the accuracy of my hypothesis depends more upon luck than upon focused searching in the archives. Thus far, I have not been lucky.
I won't delve here into Jean's discussion (pp. vi-xi) of the various versions. I hope that my Vers une chronologie answers his call for a "formal rapprochement" of notebook, composition and date, the better to understand the context for which a given work was performed. Suffice it to say here that the evidence Duron presents (prior to p. xii) — and the questions and doubts he expresses about that evidence — shows quite clearly that earlier versions probably existed in the lost notebooks that precede LXXIV, and that the score in notebook LXXIV is a later and more elaborate version of the originally relatively simple messe en musique.
The important things to keep in mind here are:
1) The music written for the Sainte-Chapelle belonged to the King and were therefore confiscated during the hours that followed the death of the maître de chapelle. That the Assumpta mass survives means that it was NOT written for the Sainte-Chapelle.
2) The mass is in a Roman-numeral notebook, which further suggests that this mass was NOT written for the royal chapel, but for an extracurricular event for which Charpentier was paid a fee. That is the pattern I have discerned for the period 1670-1688, and although distinguishing the "ordinary" from the "extraordinary" because difficult once he began to compose for the Jesuits, he seems to have continued to put his "extraordinary" commissions in his notebooks with Roman numerals. (Idem for the Jugement de Salomon that follows the Assumpta mass, in notebook LXXV: it was written for the Parlement, not the Sainte-Chapelle.)
3) If the mass was reworked several times, and if it evolved slowly, getting more grand each year, it is therefore because it was written for a patron who gave an annual mass and who was continually making its religious events more showy. In a word, it is for these three reasons that we possess the surviving remnants of these annual masses that were gathered into a bundle of partbooks post-1700.
To these three points should be added a fourth:
4) Notebook LXXIV almost certainly was copied out prior to November 1702. For, in the so-called "Edouard" memorandum, which lists the manuscripts being offered to the royal library, the next notebook is described as containing a piece written for the opening of Parlement in 1702 — and in my Vers une chronologie I point out that if the anonymous compiler of this memorandum knew such details it was not thanks to internal evidence, but to little slips or outside covers, since discarded, that Charpentier had attached to the notebooks. (Why did I say this? Because without such slips, the compiler could not possibly have known such details.)
The position of the missing notebooks LXXI-LXXIII in the Meslanges supports the argument that the Assumpta mass was reworked but that these reworkings were not transferred into notebook LXXIV. When Charpentier reused a work — for example, the so-called Miserere "of the Jesuits," which was written for the Guise singers in 1685 and adapted for the Jesuits during Charpentier's tenure there in the 1690s — he did not change the number of the notebook and alter its position in the Meslanges. (With one noteworthy exception: the first two versions of music for the Malade imaginaire were eventually merged into one notebook, but this took place early in his career, and he didn't go back and numbered those notebooks until years later.) No new, revised score for this Miserere exists: Charpentier simply marked up his old version for his copyists at the Jesuits, and they (doubtlessly guided by Charpentier) created new partbooks and perhaps wrote out a conducting score — now lost — that showed these modifications. In short, the Miserere was composed for a service to be held in early 1685, was adapted at least once in the 1690s to fit a very different group of performers, yet it remained in notebook 43b, where it follows a piece for Christmas 1684 and precedes compositions for the spring and summer of 1685.
I understand Jean's skepticism (p. vi) with Catherine Cessac's assumption that the Assumpta mass was written for August 15, 1702. That is an educated guess, based on the fact that the score of the Assumpta mass precedes a work for November 1702. In other words, the version of the mass copied into notebook LXXIV quite probably was written during the months leading up to November 1702. And earlier versions of Assumpta whose absence so perturbs Jean Duron may well have been in the lost notebooks LXXI to LXXIII. I think Cessac is on target here. At any rate, this is the picture gleaned from the chronological sequence of these notebooks. And I repeat, because it is important, these works were not intended for the Sainte-Chapelle but for an event at which singers from the Chapel performed.
Here is the way I see the sequence and approximate dating of these notebooks:
notebook LXVIII: a mass for the dead, in which Dun, an opera singer who performed for the Jesuits participates. This may have been written prior to Charpentier's nomination to the Sainte-Chapelle in the spring of 1698, or he may have committed himself to writing this for the Fathers prior to his departure and, since it was performed after the summer of 1698, he therefore considered it "extraordinary." Both explanations are prompted by the fact that this notebook is not on "similijesuit" paper, so it was written at the very end of his tenure at the Jesuits. So, let's date it as more or less the final months of 1698.
notebook LXIX: psalms for vespers, also not on jesuit paper. Early 1699?
notebook LXX: for the Saint Sacrement (i.e., probably Corpus Christi, in late spring) and Christmas, also not on jesuit paper. Possible date: early to late 1699
notebook LXXI: lost. Judging from Charpentier's average annual production throughout the 1690s, it would contain works from the first half of the next year, 1700
notebook LXXII: lost. Estimated date: late 1700 to early 1701 at latest.
notebook LXXIII: lost . It logically would contain works for the 6-8 months prior to the Assumpta score of notebook LXXIV. So, according to this "educated-guess" chronology on which Cessac and I in the main agree, the notebook would have contained commissions for late 1701 and early 1702
notebook LXXIV: Assumpta mass, August 15 (so says the anonymous memorandum: "Charpentier apparently had a tag on it that read: "Pour le Jour de l'Assomption." The chronology suggests that this would be August 15, 1702, Cessac's educated guess.
notebook LXXV: Salomon, which, the memorandum says, was written for the opening of Parlement in November 1702. It is especially revealing that this notebook is made of the same paper as notebook LXXIV — which strongly suggests that they are close contemporaries.
But I'm not interested in rehashing the dating problems. The above is intended to explain in more detail the reasoning that doubtlessly prompted Cessac's dating (with which I agree heartily) and to help users of Duron's edition put his very good questions into the broad context of the dating of Charpentier's works.
Let's instead turn to the Assumpta mass and its raison d'être. Written for August 15 it must have been, because the anonymous expert so asserted. But definitely not for the Sainte-Chapelle, because that particular notebook was not confiscated in 1704. Sung, nevertheless, by the chapel singers. And for an event that was performed annually, an event that apparently became more lavish with each passing year. This doesn't sound like much, but it's really a lot of solid evidence. Indeed, we stand a good chance of being able to determine the raison d'être for this mass — and for its different versions — if we search for a group that: 1) met in the precincts of the Palais, 2) had access to the musicians of the royal chapel, 3) had a special devotion for the Virgin, and 4) sponsored annual masses and was very busily making them ever more lavish.
We know that the religious confraternity of the procureurs of the Parlement of Paris sponsored the famous Messe Rouge for which Charpentier wrote his Jugement de Salomon. We also know that this mass was not sung in the Sainte-Chapelle but in the Chapel of Saint Nicolas, in the Grand'Salle of the Palais; and we know that the singers of the Sainte-Chapelle routinely sung at this mass. (But that is another subject, for another venue.) But none of the services held by the procureurs seems to involve the Feast of the Assumption. Is there then, I asked myself, another confraternity that met within the walls of the Palais and that sponsored a mass on August 15? A professional or devotional confraternity that parallels that of the procureurs?
My search led me to a little chapel just a few hundred feet from the Sainte-Chapelle: the chapel of Saint-Michel, situated near the entry door of the Palais. This chapel was the meeting place of the Confraternity of Saint Michel du Mont de la Mer (that is, of Mont-Saint-Michel), researched by Anne Lombard-Jourdan in "La Confrérie de Saint Michel du Mont," Bulletin de la Société de l'histoire de Paris et de l'Ile-de-France, 1986-87, pp. 105-178. This confraternity, which had a special veneration for the Virgin, in the form of the cult of "Notre Dame de Tombelaine," was known for the lavish processions it sponsored in Paris and for several high masses in music — the chief being the mass sung on May 8, the day of the Apparition of Saint Michel. (p. 161). October 16, another feast honoring Saint Michel, was also an important feast day for the group but, in the early seventeenth century at least, the mass sung in the chapel of Saint-Michel of the Palais was merely a low one. By 1660, the procession — led by instrumentalists — that was organized each year on October 16 had been embellished to include children dressed as angels, escorting a model of Mont-Saint-Michel and Saint Michel himself, accompanied by a feisty dragon (p. 145). The procession moved toward one of the churches of the capital, for a high mass (this movement from low mass to high mass suggests that the confraternity was continually embellishing its festivities), then processed back to the Palais. By 1660, the confraternity's masses in honor of the Virgin had likewise become more elaborate: the bylaws mention several masses, "le tout en musique à l'ordinaire" — among them the day of the Nativity of the Virgin, September 9, when a high mass and vespers, "tout en musique à l'ordinaire," added luster to the "grande feste de Nostre Dame de Tombelaine"; but, as late as 1660, the Feast of the Assumption was still celebrated by a low mass, not a high one in music (p. 167, article XIIII).
Does any of this lead us to Charpentier's Assumpta mass? Perhaps, because a document dated 1665 (p. 177) describes the role that the musicians of the Sainte-Chapelle play in the devotions of this confraternity. Every Sunday a priest of the Sainte-Chapelle said mass in the confraternity's chapel, and also for the principal feasts of the Virgin — including August 15, Assumption Day. And, it continues, for the two feasts of Saint Michel, "fera chanter en musique par tous les chantres de la Ste Chapelle, avec les enfants de chœur, les 1es et 2es vespres, la grande messe avec le salut et le lendemain celebrera une basse messe our consommer la Se Hostie." The document specifies the number of singers participating in the procession of October 16: 3 superius, 2 bas superius, 3 haute-contres, 3 tailles, 1 concordant, 4 basse-contres and 2 enfants de chœur. The Mercure galant of November 1684 (p. 78) proves that the singers of the Sainte-Chapelle continued to participate in the procession of October 16: the procession was led by children dressed as angels, and "la musique de la Sainte Chapelle suivait, et on alla dans et ordre au monastère du Val de Grâce, où la messe fut chantée."
In a word, we have proof that Charpentier's musicians performed
regularly for the Confraternity of Saint Michel — but we can't for the
moment prove that they did so on August 15. There is, however, evidence
that, as the seventeenth century progressed, the number of masses in
music sponsored by the confraternity increased. Lombard-Jourdan's
evidence stops with the late 1660s: somewhere in the libraries and
archives of this vast world, does a document exist that will permit us
to assert that, by 1698, the Confraternity of Saint Michel and of Notre
Dame de Tombelaine included an annual high mass in music sung by the
musicians of the Sainte-Chapelle-du-Palais?
Until such a document is
found, we can hypothesize that the Assumpta mass was written
for this confraternity. That each year the mass became more elaborate
does mesh very well with the ever- more-elaborate devotions being
sponsored by this confraternity. Thus far, this hypothesis corresponds
to the four "facts" cited above:
1) there is no relationship between the Confraternity of Saint-Michel and the king, so there was no reason for the king's officers to confiscate the score and partbooks of this mass in 1704;
2) in return for participating in the ceremonies of the Confraternity of Saint-Michel, the Sainte- Chapelle was remunerated: it was indeed an "extraordinary" activity;
3) participating in an annual mass can be expected to have obliged Charpentier to modify the work: choirboys came and went, and so did adult singers, and the sponsors of the mass (and the amount of money they were willing to spend) doubtlessly had a say in the number of instrumentalists to be hired each year — all of which could have forced Charpentier to change his instrumentation or his singers from one year to the next;
4) lost earlier versions of these adapted versions can be assumed to have existed in the lost notebooks LXXI-LXXIII.
In short, a coherent explanation for the changes made in the
Assumpta mass begins to emerge.
We should also keep in mind
that this particular mass appears to have been somewhat of an exception.
That is to say, during the first two decades of his career, aside for
the annual mass in music sung for the dead Guises, there do not seem to
have been many musical events requiring this sort of annual revision.
Once he began working for the Jesuits, Charpentier seems to have been
free to hire and fire as he wished and did not have to adjust his music
to fit the strengths or weaknesses of a resident musical ensemble. Only
when he reached the Sainte-Chapelle and was expected to tend the
"extraordinary" commissions customarily imposed upon the maître de
chapelle, was he forced to dance attention before the
inconsistencies and disputes that are almost inevitable within even the
most pious confraternity.