Nicolas Métru (ca. 1610 in

Bar-sur-Aube Bar-sur-Aube (, literally ''Bar on Aube'') is a commune and a sub-prefecture in the Aube department in the Grand Est region of France. Surrounded by hills and Champagne vineyards, the city is traversed by the river Aube, from which it derives ...

1668

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

) was a French organist, viol player, and composer of pieces for viol and airs. From 1642 he was organist at St. Nicolas-des-Champs, then some time later master of music for the Jesuits. He taught

Couperin The Couperin family was a musical dynasty of professional composers and performers. They were the most prolific family in French musical history, active during the Baroque era (17th—18th centuries). Louis Couperin and his nephew, François Coup ...

and

Lully Jean-Baptiste Lully ( , , ; born Giovanni Battista Lulli, ; – 22 March 1687) was an Italian-born French composer, guitarist, violinist, and dancer who is considered a master of the French Baroque music style. Best known for his operas, he ...

and was an outstanding viol player. His first publication - which survives - was a collection of laudatory airs to verse by Guillaume de Baïf, a minor poet but son of

Jean-Antoine de Baïf Jean Antoine de Baïf (; 19 February 1532 – 19 September 1589) was a French poet and member of the '' Pléiade''. Life Jean Antoine de Baïf was born in Venice, the natural son of the scholar Lazare de Baïf, who was at that time French amb ...

, for the victorious return of

Louis XIII Louis XIII (; sometimes called the Just; 27 September 1601 – 14 May 1643) was King of France from 1610 until his death in 1643 and King of Navarre (as Louis II) from 1610 to 1620, when the crown of Navarre was merged with the French crown ...

to Paris in 1628 after the end of the 14-month siege of Protestant

La Rochelle La Rochelle (, , ; Poitevin-Saintongeais: ''La Rochéle''; oc, La Rochèla ) is a city on the west coast of France and a seaport on the Bay of Biscay, a part of the Atlantic Ocean. It is the capital of the Charente-Maritime department. With ...

. His third collection of airs also contains laudatory texts, for the marriage of

Louis XIV , house = Bourbon , father = Louis XIII , mother = Anne of Austria , birth_date = , birth_place = Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye, Saint-Germain-en-Laye, France , death_date = , death_place = Palace of Vers ...

. His duets for two viols (Paris, 1642) are the first printed example, and therefore probably antedate the duets of Sainte-Colombe. His fantasias for viols, as those of Henry and Moulinié, derive from the ''

air de cour The ''air de cour'' was a popular type of secular vocal music in France in the late Renaissance and early Baroque period, from about 1570 until around 1650. From approximately 1610 to 1635, during the reign of Louis XIII, this was the predominant ...

'' and the dance rather than older styles. His 1642 publication reflects the change in development of the

viol The viol (), viola da gamba (), or informally gamba, is any one of a family of bowed, fretted, and stringed instruments with hollow wooden bodies and pegboxes where the tension on the strings can be increased or decreased to adjust the pitc ...

in the 1630-1650s with the upper parts being written with the new smaller viols in mind.

Works, editions and recordings

Works *''Recueil des vers du Sr. G. de Baïf, mis en musique par N. Métru, chantez en l'alégresse de l'heureux retour du roy'', Paris, 1628 *''Fantaisies'', a 2 viole, Paris, 1642 *''Premier livre d'airs'' Paris 1646, - lost *''Deuxième livre d’airs'', Paris, 1646 *''Troisième livre d'airs'', Paris, 1661 *''Missa ad imitationem moduli Brevis oratio'', Paris, 1663 *''Contrafacta'', 1632 Editions The

CMBV The Centre de Musique Baroque de Versailles (CMBV - ''Centre of Baroque Music Versailles'') is a centre for the study and performance of French Baroque music, based at the Menus-Plaisirs du Roi. It was founded by Philippe Beaussant and Vincent B ...

have prepared editions of his duets.Works at "Centre musique baroque de Versailles"
Recordings * ''Neufiesme Fantaisie'' on ''Orpheus,'' Ensemble L'Amoroso, Sou GuiBalestraccio. Zig Zag, 2008

References

Sources

Jean-Paul C. Montagnier Jean-Paul C. Montagnier (born September 28, 1965 at Lyon) is a French musicologist. He studied at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris, where he received two first prizes in musical analysis (1988, professor: Claude Ballif) an ...

, ''The Polyphonic Mass in France, 1600-1780: The Evidence of the Printed Choirbooks,'' Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017. {{DEFAULTSORT:Metru, Nicolas 1610s births 1668 deaths People from Bar-sur-Aube French Baroque viol players French Baroque composers French male classical composers 17th-century classical composers 17th-century male musicians