Hymnus "Ave maris stella" (Premier livre d'orgue, Paris 1699)

Although Nicolas de Grigny (1672–1703) was only 31 years old and published only a single organ work during his lifetime – the “Premier livre d'orgue” of 1699 – he is one of the most influential figures in French Baroque organ music, not least because none other than Johann Sebastian Bach was an early admirer of this composer.

In 1713, during his time in Weimar, Bach, who probably got to know Grigny's “Premier livre d'orgue” during his youth in Lüneburg, made a handwritten copy of Grigny's only collection to be published; alongside Buxtehude and Frescobaldi, Grigny is likely to be one of the most important influences on Bach's Bach's organ works; in my opinion, for example, the compositional model of Grigny's characteristic five-part fugues can be felt not only in the Fantasia in C minor, BWV 562, probably composed in Weimar, but even in the late chorale prelude “Vater unser im Himmelreich”, BWV 682. Later, Bach's cousin and friend Johann Gottfried Walther also copied Grigny's work with his own hand.

Born in Reims in 1672, Grigny grew up in a musical family; his grandfather, father and uncle had been organists at the cathedral or the Basilica of St. Pierre et St. Hilaire in Reims. In 1693, the young Nicolas took up the position of organist at the Basilica of Saint-Denis in Paris and probably also studied at the same time with the famous Nicolas Antoine Lebègue (1631–1702), who was already working as court organist at Versailles at the time and who contributed significantly to the development of the French organ style of the 17th century with his music. In 1696, a year after his marriage in Paris, Grigny returned to his hometown, where in 1697 he became titular organist at the Cathedral of Notre-Dame de Reims, which, even then, was a place of great historical significance as the coronation church of the French monarchs. The composer died here in 1703.