Abstract
Although the activities of the Concert Spirituel are usually studied through the concert programs compiled by Constant Pierre in 1899 and emended by Antoine Bloch-Michel in 1975, the data thy provide about individual pieces of music are sketchy. Eight inventories of Concert Spirituel music, two published here for the first time; are more specific. They generally give title and compose?, and they also include works that were acquired but not performed.
The Concert Spirituel did not have a single music library: instead, each entrepreneur built his own, treating it as a commercial asset that could be leased to his successors. Changes in repertoire usually ascribed to changing musical taste (the querelle des bouffons in the 1750s and the revolution musicale circa 1770) can be linked to these lease agreements (which kept older works in the repertoire) and to refusals to make these agreements, which caused old music to be replaced with new works. Taken together, the inventories form a chronicle of changing musical taste in Paris from 1734 to 1778.
Appended to the article are transcripts of the Paris Opera's 1748 inventory of Concert Spirituel music, and a newly discovered inventory of music that Pancrace Royer assembled between 1748 and 1755. The latter is particularly valuable for studying the early history of the concert symphony in France; since it contains a list of the French, Italian, and German symphonies that Royer played.