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Composer: Nicolas de Grigny (16721703)
Work: La Messe avec plainchant (1699)
Performers: Bеrnard Couduriеr (orgue); Ensemble AIternаtim

Painting: Anthonie de Lorme (16101673) Innenansicht einer im Stil der Spätrenaissance erbauten Kirche (1646)
Image in high resolution: https://flic.kr/p/2miXZcg
Painting: Pieter Neeffs (fl. 1605c.1658) Interior of a Gothic Church at night
Image in high resolution: https://flic.kr/p/2mj7NSy
Painting: Pieter Neeffs II (1620c.1659) The Interior of a Gothic Cathedral with Elegant Figures Strolling and Others Attending a Mass
Image in high resolution: https://flic.kr/p/2miXWtL

Further info: https://www.amazon.es/dp/B00008LOPE
Listen free: https://open.spotify.com/album/2ugl1B...



Nicolas de Grigny
(Reims, bap. 8 September 1672 Reims, 30 November 1703)

French organist and composer. He came from a family several of whom were organists and town musicians: his father and grandfather and one of his paternal uncles were all organists in Reims. From 1693 to 1695 he was organist at the abbey church of St Denis in Paris, where his brother André was subprior; he was apparently a pupil of Lebègue at this period. In 1695 he married a Parisian merchant’s daughter. The record of the birth of the first of his seven children shows that by 1696 he was back in Reims, and within a year he was organist at the cathedral, although the exact date of his appointment is unknown. He held this position until his death, the year before which he agreed to give his services as organist to the parish church of St Symphorien in Reims. Grigny’s volume consists mainly of nine groups of pieces – the four sections of the Ordinary of the Mass and five hymns; there are also four single numbers. Each of the nine groups begins with a plainsong movement in which the chant appears in long notes in either the bass or the tenor. The mass draws upon the plainsong Mass IV of the Vatican edition familiar from the organ masses of Nivers, Lebègue and Couperin. Accompanying voices are set in animated harmony, at times engaging in free imitation. Each cantus firmus movement is followed by a fugue based upon one or more motifs of the plainsong. The remaining movements are in the familiar forms of Grigny’s predecessors – duos, trios, récits, various other embellished solos and dialogues. These movements rarely echo the plainsong, though the récit for the Pange lingua is a striking exception in which the entire hymn melody is paraphrased with embellishment. Although Grigny introduced no new forms he enriched the traditional ones in various ways. A number of his fugues are in five parts, requiring two manuals and pedals, and so are some of the dialogues and plainsong versets. Several of the récits call for a pair of solo voices rather than for a single solo against the accompaniment. Fugal treatment appears in movements other than fugues, nor is dialogue treatment – the alternation between manuals of contrasting registration – confined to dialogues. No composer of the French classical organ school demanded more of the pedals, and few exploited the contrasting colours of the organ more vividly. In other respects too Grigny’s work is more distinguished than that of his predecessors and contemporaries: in richness of texture, complexity of counterpoint, expressiveness of melodic embellishment, seriousness of purpose and intensity of feeling. He had no immediate French successors either in these aspects or in his use of liturgical material: rather is his work a summation of that of his predecessors. Bach paid it the tribute of copying it in its entirety for his own study and use about 1713. There is also a copy in the hand of J.G. Walther, probably taking that of Bach as its source.