 | Nicolas de la Grotte (1530 - 1600) France
Nicolas de La Grotte (also La Crotte) (1530 ? c.
1600) was a French composer and keyboard player of
the Renaissance. He was well known as a performer
on the organ and on the spinet, as well as a
composer of chansons; in addition he was one of
very few French composers of the 16th century with
a surviving composition written specifically for
the keyboard.
La Grotte was known for his chansons, about 100 of
which have survived, and also for his keyboard
playing, especially on the organ. While he is
known to have written music for the organ, only
one composition has survived: a four-part fantasia
on the madrigal Ancor che col partire by Cipriano
de Rore. This is one of only a handful of French
pieces of the 16th century that was written
specifically for keyboard. The overwhelming
majority of keyboard compositions from 16th-
century France are transcriptions of music for
voices?especially chansons.
La Grotte's chansons were transitional in style
between the mid-century French chanson and the air
de cour, which was to be the predominant type of
secular vocal music in France around 1600. Many of
his chansons feature a prominent melody in the
superius part (the highest voice) with a
relatively simple chordal accompaniment in the
other voices, making them easily transcribable for
lute. Indeed this is exactly what happened to many
of them, and in this respect La Grotte's chansons
are like the later air de cour, which featured a
voice accompanied by a lute. In addition, he
combined duple and triple rhythms in irregular
patterns, following the declamation of the text,
in the manner of the composers writing musique
mesurée à l'antique, such as Claude Le Jeune.
The first book of La Grotte's chansons (1569, for
four voices) is based on the poetry of Pierre de
Ronsard. His later chansons set a variety of
poets, and some of the poems are religious, in
contrast to the exceedingly secular content of the
French chanson of the early and middle 16th
century. Unusually for the time, La Grotte seems
to have written no music in the specifically
sacred forms, including the mass and the motet.
Many of La Grotte's chansons were published again
later in arrangements for voice and lute, as airs
de cour, under the name of Adrian Le Roy, the
famous French music printer. (Hide extended text) ... (Read all)
Source : Wikipedia
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