Chapter 2: Nicolas Gigault’s Life and Work Personal life Little is known about Gigaule’s early life; in fact, even the circumstances of his birth are matters of dispute. It is known that his father was Estienne Gigault, a bailiff at the Chatelet — the law-courts in the city of Paris (not a popular line of work). ‘According to Fétis, who was only one generation younger than Gigault, Nicolas was born in one of the outlying villages surrounding Paris, “Claye-en-Brie” (it may be that Estienne found it advantageous to be a 17¢h-century commuter, residing outside the jurisdiction in which he served). As itis, chere is no locality that survives by that name, but in any case he was born just outside to Paris. The date of Nicolas’s birth can only be inferred from documentary evidence. Arguing from court documents and records from St. Nicolas-des-Champs (where Gigaule was organist), Pirro claims a date of 1624 or -25.!. More recent research by Pierre Hardouin has shown that in May of 1626 Gigault’s parents had no heir nor expected one, putting Gigault’s birth-date no earlier than 1627.2 Until and unless further information is uncovered, these competing claims cannot be resolved conclusively. ‘Almost nothing is known of Gigault’s childhood. Nicolas was apparently the oldest of three brothers, but nothing is known of the fates of the other two. At some time in his childhood his mother died and his father Estienne remarried. (Since in 1648, Gigaull and his two brothers were mentioned in a court record as being ‘emancipés — a state of semi-ndependence following the death of their father, but not yet ‘come of age, and therefore under the guidance of a trustee. (By Parisian custom at that ‘time one was eligible for this “emancipation” at the age of 20 and was considered as being of age at 25.) Reckoning from these figures, one deduces that they were bom between the final months of 1623 and 1628. For a closer fix on the date, Pirro tums to the record of a ‘meeting of the chapter at St. Nicolas-des-Champs (where Gigault was organist) in May of +1701, during which the rights of succession to the organist's post were being discussed, ‘The record shows that Gigautt had held that position for forty-nine years and suggests that he was twenty-seven when he began there, giving a birth-date of 1624 of 1625. 2 André Piro, Introduction to Livre de musique pour lorgue... by Nicolas Gigault, in ‘Guilmant, Alexandre (ed.), Archives des maftres de orgue des XVle et XVilo et XVIIle siacies, vol. 4 (Paris, Durand et Fils, 1902; reprint ed., New York: Johnson Reprint Corp... 1972), p. vil; Pierre Hardouin, “Quatre Parisiens dorigine: Nivers, Gigault, Julien, Boyvin” RGM 39 (1957): 73, cited in New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, (6th od.), s. v. *Gigault, Nicolas,” by Almonte Howell. 3940 ‘Nicolas’s stepmother was one of the negotiators in the drawing up of his marriage contract fourteen years after the death of his father, we can presume that their relationship was at least a cordial one.) The only other thing we know is that he grew up in poverty. The emancipation document of 1648 was in fact an official renunciation of the three brothers’ hereditary rights to their father’s office, which the family Gigault could no longer afford to maintain.> This poverty was not to be Gigault’s lot in life, however. In 1662 he married Marie Aubert, who brought to the marriage an ample dowry; but Gigault had already achieved his own measure of worldly success. According to the inventory drawn up during negotiations for the marriage contract, “Mr Nicolas Gigault, citizen of Paris” was “residing in a house on rue au Marie in the parish of St. Nicolas-des-Champs,” a well-furnished home, including silver, rugs and tapestries, paintings, and sculpture. The paintings give some clue to his character as well as his status: four of them were ofa devotional nature, suggesting that religion was more to him than just the milieu in which he lived and worked, but a matter of real personal significance. Musical instruments figured prominently in the inventory: a chamber organ, two harpsichords (one with two keyboards, the other with one), three spinets (virginals) and ewo clavichords, one theorbo, a bass viol, ewo treble viols, and a guitar. The list bespeaks not only considerable worldly success, but also a broad range of musical competence. From this marriage came five children, the oldest and youngest being sons and the middle three daughters. Both of the sons followed their father into musical careers. Anne-Joseph (ca. 1663 - before 1720 in Paris) held positions as organist in Rochefort and Bordeaux, and by 1713 was residing and presumably working in Paris. The youngest child, Anne-Joachim (1676-1765), also became an organist; in 1701 he was granted the rights of succession to his father's position at St. Nicolas-des- ‘Champs, eventually succeeding to it after his father's death, and remaining there for ‘André Pirro, Introduction to Livre de musique pour orgue, p. vil 4 The total value of the instruments was set at 1,430 livres: considering that the two harpsichords together were appraised at 500 livres, and that today two such instruments ‘might represent as much as $25,000 (and in the 17th century they were probably Comparatively more expensive), that total may be equivalent to $80,000 or more.4 the rest of his life. Of the three daughters, the youngest, Emérentienne-Marguerite, married an organ-builder in Paris, Hypolite Ducastel; one of her two children by that ‘marriage was the Parisian harpsichord-builder, Augustin-Hypolite Ducastel. She ‘must have become acquainted with Mr Ducastel through his professional dealings with her father: in 1687, eight years before the marriage, Gigault was one of the examiners of a new organ built and installed in St. Benott in Paris by Ducastel. No other events in the personal life of Gigault are recorded until the death of his wife on 7 August 1700. Again an inventory was taken of their possessions, which shows them to have remained prosperous bourgeaises — indeed, the collection of instruments was virtually identical to that of thirty-eight years previously. Shortly thereafter Gigaule remarried, this time to Jeanne Hodart; she must have been some ‘years younger than he, since she in turn remarried twelve years ater his death. Gigault himself died on 7 August 1707; nothing else is known of the manner or circumstances of his passing. Professional Life Even less is known to us of Gigault’s musical education and development than. of his personal life. Fétis, on the strength of Gigault’s evocation of the name Titelouze in the preface to his Litre de musique pour l’orgue, claimed that Gigault had been a student of the older master. However, since in 1633 (when Titelouze died) Gigault could not have been more than seven years old, perhaps only four or five, Titelouze could not possibly have taught Gigault. In addition, Titelouze lived and worked in Rouen, whereas Gigault spent his whole life (so far as we know) in Paris; even if he had been of an age to study with the older man, it is unlikely that his poverty-stricken family could have paid either for journeys to Rouen ot for the lessons. 5 Instead, Pirro proposes four other possible teachers. The first ewo were named by Mersenne in his Harmonie universelle as the two keyboard players in Paris “worthy of praise”: Pierre de Chabanceau, Sieur de la Barre (1592-1656), who was noted for ‘5 This mistake has been perpetuated up to the present — see William Maul,"Some ‘Observations on the French Classical Organ School of the 17th Century.” in The American Organist Lil (March 1969): p. 22his brilliant technique, and Charles Racquet, organist at Notre-Dame from 1618 to 1643, whom Mersenne praises for his compositional skill. A third potential teacher was Jean Denis, organist of the Ste.-Chapelle, and also a well-established instrument builder. Denis was a particular admirer of the older, polyphonic style, and may have transmitted this to the young Gigault; moreover, Gigault was respected as an expert ‘on the organ as an instrument in the time of his maturity, and he may have learned ‘much about instrument-making from such as Denis. Pirro's prime candidate is Estienne Richard, organist for St. Jacques-la-Boucherie and St. Martin-des-Champs. He bases his supposition on two facts — chat Gigault succeeded Richard as organist at St. Martin (in 1673, following the latter's death in 1669), and that after 1643 Richard lived in the same neighborhood as Joseph Hostage, who in 1648 became Gigaule’s guardian after the death of his father. Possibly young Nicolas lived there for a few years; even if not, he certainly would have spent much time in the neighborhood. There he may have gotten to know and study with Richard, and very likely have listened to him playing at nearby St. Jacques. But any connection between these men and Gigault remains merest speculation. To the best of our knowledge, Gigault’s professional career began in 1646, when he was chosen to succeed Gilles Foucquet as organist of St. Honoré. He gave up that position in 1652 to take a similar one at St. Nicolas-des-Champs. The organ apparently did not consume all his professional energies: the list of instrumentalists for a production of Lully’s Alcidiane in 1658 includes the name “Gigault.” That he owned several viols and a theotbo, in addition to the keyboard instruments one might expect in the household of an organist, tends to substantiate this. Moreover, in a tax-roll dating from 1695 Gigault was assessed a fee for being a professional instrumentalist in addition to that for being an organist, as was also his younger son, Anne-Joachim.” © André Pirro, Introduction to Livre de musique pour orgue, vil - x. Richard was also one ‘of the premier harpsichordists of his generation: he is the best-represented among the lite music we know by the clavecinistes before Chambonnires, just as his two surviving organ ‘Préludes are two of the only three pieces from the period betwoen Titelouze and Nivers for whom we have a composer's name (the other being Racquets Fantaisie): see Willi Apel, History of Keyboard Music to 1700, pp. 504-508. 7 André Piro, Introduction to Livre de musique pour 'orgue, p. xiv; Die Musik in Geschichte nd Gegenwart, 1949-51 od., . v. “Gigault, Nicolas,” by Jean Bonfils,Nevertheless, his work as an organist remained the principal focus of his career, as indicated by his undertaking the position of organist at St. Martin-des- Champs in 1673, in addition to his duties at St. Nicolas. And sometime before the publication of his Livre de musique pour l'orgue in 1685, he added to these the post of organist for the Hopital de St. Esprit, also known as St. Esprit-en-Grtve, an orphanage next to the Hotel de Ville. The holding of multiple appointments in this manner was not unusual at this time: it has already been noted that Estienne Richard ‘was organist at both St. Martin-des-Champs and St. Jacques-la-Boucherie, and Jean- Philippe Rameau (with whom Gigaule had brief contact at the very end of his life) held two positions and forfeited a third because he was unwilling to forego the two. Gigault, like Bach, was considered an expert not only on the playing of the ‘organ but also concerning the instrument itself. We know of four occasions on which he was called in to evaluate a newly-built and installed instrument — in 1672 at the Ste-Chapelle, in 1677 at St. Honoré where he had been organist fifteen years previously, in 1683 at St. Germain-l'Auxerrois, and in 1687 at St. Benoft. On this last occasion the builder whose work was being examined was Hypolite Ducastel, who several years later would become Gigault's son-in-law. ‘This was a time of great activity in organ-building, largely as a result of the widespread destruction during the ‘Wars of Religion which had plagued France from the middle of the preceding century until the accession of Henry IV. The period of stability during his reign and that of, his son and grand-son, Louis XIII and XIV, provided opportunity for the replacement or expansion of instruments. This was also the period when a new musical style was developing in France (which we call Baroque), leading to new ideas for developing the organ’s tonal palette. And the new range of tone-colors resulting from this opportunity further encouraged new modes of expression, such as the tierce-en-talle. It is no accident that this was the time of flowering of the great French classical ‘organ music as well as instruments. ‘An idea of the esteem in which Gigault was held by his contemporaries can only be garnered indirectly, like so much about his life. That same tax assessment which indicated that Gigault was a professional violist lists him among the “maitresde premier classe” of keyboard musicians, including also Raison, Marchand, D’Anglebert, and Frangois Couperin — exalted company indeed. On the other hand, Gigaule was never appointed to be one of the four organists for the royal chapel, a distinction held at various times by Nivers, Lebégue, Thomelin (the teacher of Frangois Couperin), Buteme, Marchand, and Couperin, suggesting that although his professional standing was high, it was not of the highest order In 1693, six compasiteurs de musique faisant d’ensiegner a toucher le clavecin (“composers of music professing to teach the playing of the harpsichord”), one of whom was Gigault, and the four organists of the royal chapel filed suit against the ‘musicians’ guild in Paris, known to us as Les Ménétriers, who were attempting to coerce the organists and harpsichordists, who were not in their jurisdiction, into submitting to their authority. The initial decree by the court, in favor of the clavecinistes, informs us, incidentally, that Lully had at one time been a pupil of Gigault.9 Of his final years we know little more. The death of his wife in 1701 may have spurred Gigault to consider his own mortality, because in 1701 he took steps to insure that his son Anne-Joachim would succeed him as organist at St. Nicolas-des- ‘Champs, which was finally accomplished after some disagreement with the church- warden. In 1706 he was a member of the jury that elected Rameau organist of Ste Madeleine-en-Cité: Rameau turned it down rather than give up his other positions, and Antoine Domel ultimately took the post. Gigaule died somewhat less than a year later., on 7 August 1707. ® André Pirro, Introduction to Livre de musique pour lorgue, p. xiv; Apel, History of Keyboard Music to 1700, pp.713, 719, 725; Wilfred Moller, Franpols Couperin and the French Classical Tradition (New York: Dover, 1968), p. 20. This legal battle has been immortalized, ina fashion hardly attoring to the guid, by Frangois Couperin in his second book of Pidces de clavecin, in the set of pieces in the 11th ordreenttied "Les Fastes de la grande ot anciens Monxstnmaxsx.” Utimately the sult was. settled more than a half-century ater, stl n favor of the hampsichordists, with Anno- Joachim Gigauit named inthe final decree (MGG, s.v “Gigautt, Nicolas,” p. 109),Gigaule’s duties as organist ‘We have no direct information about what Gigault was expected to do in performance of his responsibilities as an organist, but from what we know of the duties of his contemporaries we can be sure he was not idle. From that time {the 14th century] until the 18th century the Catholic organist had as one of his chief functions the interpolation of music between passages sung by the choir. It is understandable, therefore, that a considerable amount of organ music composed from approximately 1400 to 1700 consists of alternatim versets — organ pieces that replaced portions of, and thus altemated with, certain plainsones (or polyphonic substitutes) sung at Mass and the major Offices.! The Council of Trent attempted to regulate (limit) the use of the organ, restoring to the choir or celebrants passages of text which were thought necessary t0 be heard, and to establish a uniform practice throughout those lands where the Roman popes still held sway. The Council’s attempts in this direction were resisted in France, where a strongly nationalistic episcopal hierarchy wished to remain as independent as possible from Roman control (and thence Hapsburg influence), at the same time that they were struggling to maintain dominance over the Huguenot party; in both these aims the French episcopate had the enthusiastic support of the crown. Councils of the Gallican church in Rheims (1564) and Cambrai (1656) permitted the organ to be played in the Kyrie, Prosa, Sanctus, and Agnus of the Mass, as well as the hymns in the Offices. The reforming trends of the Council of Trent were further weakened by the concurrent Counter-Reformation trend toward greater artistic display in worship. For churches that desired polyphonic music but could not support the highly-trained choir that would have been needed, this trend could best be satisfied by the organ, playing polyphonic versets in alternation with plainchant versets sung by a choir. The Ceremoniale episcoporum issued in 1600 by Pope Clement VIII went a Jong way toward legitimating such usage in spite of the Tridentine reforms. This document authorized the use of the organ on all Sundays except those in the ‘Benjamin Van Wye, “Ritual Use of the Organ in France” in Journal of the American ‘Musicological Socioty XXXiI| (April 1980): 287penitential seasons of Lent and Advent. The organ was permitted to play alternatim in the Kyrie, Gloria, Sanctus, and Agnus in the Mass, and in the hymns and canticles at Matins and Vespers. Certain verses of these chants were not to be performed on the organ: first and last (doxological) verses, those which were to be sung while kneeling, and any verse preceded by one sung in polyphony rather than in plainchant.1 It implied, furthermore, that the appropriate plainchant-melody should be present in some fashion in every verse. Various documents of Parisian origin dating from between 1604 and 1670, ‘mostly contracts between organists and churches, give an idea of what was actually done, mostly in accordance with the Ceremoniale episcoporum. In general, organists were expected to play on all important saints’ days and other holy days, especially patronal feasts, and the first Sunday of each month (in this respect, the organ is used less than allowed in the 1600 Ceremoniale), and on other special occasions, particularly Saturday evening Masses votive to the Virgin Mary. For each of these days the organist was expected to play for First Vespers and Compline — both on the evening before the actual feast-day — and on the day itself Matins, Lauds, High Mass, and Benediction (a quasi-liturgical service taking place after the second Vespers of Sundays and feast-days). No contract survives for Nicolas Gigaule from any of the posts he held, but itis unlikely that his responsibilities differed in any marked way from these.2 In 1662 a document was published which intended to regulate the forms of. worship, including music, forall the cathedral, collegiate, and parish churches in the arch-diocese of Paris, che Carremoiale parisiense. It expanded the possibilities for use of the organ beyond the practice inferred from the various contracts and also beyond the Ceremoiale episcoporum of 1600. As in the earlier document, the organ could be played on all Sundays except in Advent and Lent — a sizeable increase over that suggested in the contracts. Further, it permitted the organ to play more services 11 The organ was conceived of as a substitute for the polyphonic choir, and a verse Performed by the choir in polyphony and followed immediately by one on the organ would violate the aftematim pattem. Benjamin Van Wye, “Ritual Use of the Organ in France,” pp. 301-302, 12 Benjamin Van Wye, “Ritual Use of the Organ in France,” pp. 301-302.a7 — in addition to Mass, Matins, and Vespers, the organ was authorized for Lauds, Terce, Compline, and Benediction — and more sections of those services. In the Mass there was now organ music for Kyrie, Gloria, Alleluia, prose (the very inclusion of which was a Gallican departure from Roman practice), Offertory, Sanctus, Benedictus, Agnus, communion, and Deo gratias. In the Offices the organ was allowed to play not only in the hymns and canticles (especially che Magnificat and the Te deum) but also for certain of the antiphons. Within each one of those sections, all odd-numbered verses were assigned to the organ, with the exception of the Gloria in excelsis, in which the first verse was given to the cantor and the organ played the following verse. Greater freedom was also given to the organist conceming the content of his playing: only the first one or two verses of any portion of the liturgy were required to contain the chant-melody, instead of all verses, as implied by Clement VIII. This was customarily accomplished by treating the chant either as a cantus firmus or by paraphrasing it as a fugue-subject or as a melody in the style of an air de cour.!3 Gigaule, in the two masses and several hymn-settings of his organ-book, exceeded these requirements. Thus, in the two hymn-cycles P ange lingua and Veni creator the respective chants from the basis of all the movements; and all the pieces for the Kyrie in the two Mass-cycles are also based on the liturgical melodies, albeit loosely for some of the versets (see Tables 3.2 and 3.3 on pp. 73-74). Such use of chant is consistent with the evidence from the artwork in his home of his faith and piety, and perhaps also a basic conservatism. The several Livres d’orgue from the latter half of the 17th century all adhere to the guidelines established by the Ceremoniales. A survey of these books reveals that the Mass and Vespers are specifically accommodated by the composers, along with. the Te deum — which could be a part of one of the Offices or a separate, quasi- liturgical service of its own, The many suites without title or designation, beginning with those found in Nicolas Lebégue’s first Livre d’orgue (1676), were intended to be used for those portions of a service that were not explicitly provided for otherwise. Lebégue himself wrote in the preface to that book, “The verses in this book can be ‘18Benjamin Van Wye, op. cit., pp. 313 - 317; Edward Higginbottom, “French Classical Organ Music and the Liturgy” in Proceedings of the Royal Music Association Clll (1976-1977): 28-25.played to all the Psalms and Canticles on all the tones, even to Elevations of the Mass and to Offertories. The latter requires only taking the longest pieces, or playing two together on the same tone.”!4 However, there was not total unanimity in the Organ-books, particularly in the pieces that were to be played during the Mass when the bread and wine were being consecrated, reflecting disagreement in the several service-books. Some required organ music for the Benediceus but not at the Elevation, others vice versa, and a few for the whole time. But in most cases a piece designated for one could be used for the other (except pethaps if the Benedictus verset had a cantus firmus), and there was always the possibility of taking a piece from another, non-specific suite in an appropriate tonality. The evidence of Gigault’s Livre de musique pour longue implies that he was expected to perform his duties in a manner entirely consonant with the Ceremoniales; the relationship of the book's contents to the liturgical demands will be examined more closely in the next chapter.15 Gigault’s publications Nicolas Gigault published two books of music. The Livre de musique pour orgue, the object of this study, was, o to speak, his Opus 2. The first publication was entitled Livre de musique dédié a la Trés Sainte Vierge, a collection of variations ‘on twenty Noéls — popular Christmas songs — and some settings of plainchants from the Christmas season, Conditor alme siderum and Mittit ad Virginem, “which laccording to Gigault's preface] should be sung in honor of the Divine son's birth’; it is apparently the first such collection, the antecedent of those of Daquin and Dandrieu.!6 Each set of variations follows the same pattem of six verses, proceeding from two to four voices. According to his preface, Gigault intended these pieces to be playable not only on the organ or harpsichord, but by the lute or pairs of viols, violins, oF flutes. (This mode of performance, by ll sorts of instruments, was cited by * Quoted in transiation in Fenner Douglass, The Language of the Classical French Organ (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1969), p, 179. 'SEdward Higginbottom, “French Classical Organ Music and the Liturgy.” pp. 24-27. ‘Swill Apel, History of Keyboard Music to 1700, p. 729; there has been no edition of this Work since the original print of 1682; the only surviving copies are to be found in Paris, one ‘2ach in the Bibliotheque Nationale and the Biblioth&que Sainte-Genevieve.Pirro as evidence that Gigault might have studied with Estienne Richard, who put on. such performances during the Christmas season at his churches.)!? The Book of Noéls contains one additional piece which is not in any way connected with Christmas, but does have significance for this study. It is an. allemande, “a diatonic piece written down in two manners, the one simple and the other composed of ports de wix to give the idea and the usage for applying them to all sorts of pieces.”!8 This way of using notation — showing in full figuration which was ordinarily indicated by a kind of short-hand, or else not shown at all but left to the judgment of the player — establishes a precedent for interpreting the dotted notation of his organ-book as indicating notes inégales (in actual fact, many of the dotted figures are representing ports de voix rather than inégales). In May of 1682 Gigaule turned the engraved plates for his Book of Noéls over to Frangois-Pierre Janson, a fellow organist, for the latter to print (at Janson’s expense) and distribute. However, Janson defaulted on the contract, and Gigault sued: the court in 1683 awarded to Gigault 600 livres that he was asking in damages, ‘Unfortunately, Janson declared bankruptcy, and Gigaule was never able to collect his award; he did, however, recover the plates to his book. In the October immediately following, he offered the Noéls for sale again, in anticipation of Christmas of 1683. The advertisement which appeared in the Mercure Galant included the statement, “Thave made another organ-book, which will appear in a little while.” That book, which finally was published two years later, is the Livre de musique pour l'orgue, which discloses so much about his manner of playing. 17 André Pirro, Introduction to Livre de musique pour l'orgue, p. Xi. *8quoted in André Piro, Introduction to Livre de musique pour forgue,p. vi; the ‘Allemiande was included by Gullmant in his edtion of the Livre de musique pour rorgue (Paris, Durand ot Fils, 1902).