de Grigny

Programme notes: Two Baroque Giants

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Mayfair Organ Concerts. The Grosvenor Chapel. 9 August 2022

Andrew Benson-Wilson plays music by
Two Baroque Giants – Buxtehude & de Grigny

Dietrich Buxtehude (1637-1707)
Praeludium in d minor BuxWV 140
Ciacona in e minor BuxWV 160

Nicolas de Grigny (1672-1703).
Recit de Tierce pour le Benedictus
Dialogue de flûtes pour l,’Elevation
Dialogue (Agnus Dei II)
from Premier livre d’orgue (1699)

Buxtehude
Te deum laudamus BuxWV 218
Praeludium – Te deum laudamus – Pleni sunt coeli -Te martyrum – Tu devicto

Although Buxtehude and de Grigny were born 35 years apart, the music in this recital was composed at about the same time, around 1690/1700. They were composed for very different social, religious and musical settings, Buxtehude for Lutheran Lübeck in North Germany, and de Grigny for Catholic Reims in France. The organs they played were very different, but one of the joys of the English 18th-century-inspired Grosvenor Chapel organ is that it includes elements of both German and French instruments. Bach owned music by both composers and even added some of his own ideas to de Grigny’s Premier livre d’orgue. Bach’s youthful 200-mile walk to Lübeck to meet the ageing Buxtehude is well known.

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Andrew Benson-Wilson – two Baroque giants

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Two Baroque Giants – Buxtehude & de Grigny
Andrew Benson-Wilson, organ
The Grosvenor Chapel
South Audley Street, Mayfair, London W1K 2PA
Tuesday 9 August 2020, 1:10

Music by Dietrich Buxtehude (1637-1707) and Nicolas de Grigny (1672-1703).

Although Buxtehude and de Grigny were born 35 years apart, the music played in this recital was composed at about the same time, around 1690/1700. They were composed for very different social, religious and musical settings, Buxtehude for Lutheran Lübeck, North Germany, and de Grigny for Catholic Reims, France. The organs they played were also very different, but one of the joys of English 17th/18th organs is that they include elements of both the German and the French instruments.

The overriding figure in the music of these two is JS Bach. He knew their music and owned manuscripts of both composers, even adding some of his own ideas to de Grigny’s 1699 Premier livre d’orgue. Bach’s youthful walk to Lübeck to hear the ageing Buxtehude is well known.

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Nicolas de Grigny: Premier Livre d’orgue

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Nicolas de Grigny (1672-1703) 
Premier Livre d’orgue (1699)
Ed. Jon Baxendale
234 pages • ISMN 979-0-706670-02-7 (Hardback) • 979-0-706670-28-7 (Wire)
Lyrebird Music. LBMP–008

The 1690s saw the publication of two of the most important contributions to the literature of French organ music. François Couperin’s 1690 Pièces d’Orgue (new Lyrebird edition reviewed here) is the best known of the two, with its approachable musical style that owes much to the wider musical language of Paris at the time, notably operatic arias and dances. Nicolas de Grigny’s Premier Livre d’orgue (now available in this impressive new Lyrebird edition) was published in 1699, three years before his untimely death. In contrast to Couperin’s youthful offering, de Grigny’s music delves spiritual, emotional and musical depths that most other French organ composers of the period lacked. He is well-deserving of editor Jon Baxendale’s comment that he was the “most erudite of Grand siècle organ composers”.

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Hymnes – tribute to Nicolas de Grigny

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson ~ Leave a comment

Hymnes  – tribute to Nicolas de Grigny
Olivier Latry, Jean-Baptiste Robin, Benoît Mernier, Pierre Farago, Vincent Dubois (Organ)
Basilique Saint-Remi, Reims.
Aeolus AW-11101. 60’19+57’25

AE-11101 "Hymnes"This fascinating double CD stems from the 800th anniversary (in 2011) of the laying of the first stone of the Cathedral of Reims, where Nicolas de Grigny, the finest organist composer of the French Baroque era, served as organist from 1696 until his premature death in 1703. The current organ in the cathedral is not suitable for the performance of their most famous composer’s music, but the nearby Basilique St-Remi has a Bertrand Cattiaux organ, built in 2000, with the registrations required for the French Baroque repertoire. In an enterprising initiative, the “Association Renaissance des grandes orgues de la Basilique St-Remi” started a musical project in homage to de Grigny by inviting five contemporary composers to write a new work for organ based on one of de Grigny’s five hymn settings. Continue reading →