The tercentenary of Marc-Antoine Charpentier's death in 2004 stimulated a surge of activity on the part of performers and scholars, confirming the modern assessment of Charpentier as one of the most important and inventive composers of the French Baroque. The book provides a snapshot of Charpentier's scholarship.
Charting Charpentier's 'Worlds' through his Mélanges / Patricia M. Ranum -- Charpentier's void notation : the Italian background and its implications / Graham Sadler -- The descending minor tetrachord in France : an emblem expanded / Lois Rosow -- Repentance, piety and praise : sensual imagery and musical depiction in the petits motets of Marc-Antoine Charpentier / C. Jane Gosine -- A question of genre : Charpentier's Messe pour plusieurs instruments au lieu des orgues (H513) / David Ponsford -- Charpentier's music at court : the singers and instrumentalists of the Chapelle Royale, 1663-1683 and beyond / Anthea Smith -- Performance practices at the Théâtre de Guénégaud and the Comédie-Française : evidence from Charpentier's Mélanges autographes / John S. Powell -- 'Une source peut en cacher une autre' : added preludes and instrumental cues in the Mélanges / Catherine Cessac -- The historical implications of a distinctive scoring : Charpentier's six-voice motets for Mademoiselle de Guise / Théodora Psychoyou -- Observations on Charpentier's compositional process : corrections in the Mélanges / Herbert Schneider -- Médée within the repertory of the tragédie en musique : intertextual links and the 'posterity' of Charpentier's opera / Benjamin Pintiaux -- The nature of fame : reflections on Charpentier's Les plaisirs de Versailles and Lalande's Les fontaines de Versailles / Peter Roennfeldt -- Charpentier's Motets melêz de symphonie : a nephew's tribute / Shirley Thompson.