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'Declensions and Debauchery: Exploring Two "New" Charpentier Attributions'

Thompson’s work on the manuscript B-Br, Ms III 1509 Mus, began during a research trip to Brussels when she was principally undertaking research on manuscript sources of French Baroque sacred music with the support of a British Academy small research grant. Early findings on a new work by Charpentier – the 3-voice drinking song ‘Mettons-bas notre froc’ – were presented at the Birmingham Charpentier conference in 2004 (described in the commentary to Thompson_01), where the first-ever modern performance was given by students of Birmingham Conservatoire.

As the introduction to the article makes clear, few additions have been made to the Charpentier work-list since the publication of H. Wiley Hitchcock’s _Catalogue raisonnée_ in 1982, and thus the identification of a new work has special significance. An important element of the article is the process of authenticating ‘Mettons-bas’, drawing on contextual clues and identifying musical ‘fingerprints’ in keeping with the composer’s own style. Furthermore, this publication makes a scholarly edition of the work accessible for future study and performance. More broadly, the article provides a research tool for other scholars by presenting concordances for most of the other pieces in B-Br, Ms III 1509, over 20 of which are unattributed in the manuscript.