# Nicolas Grenon

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**Nicolas Grenon** (c. 1375 – October 17, 1456) was a French composer of the early [Renaissance](/source/Renaissance_music). He wrote in all the prevailing musical forms of the time, and was a rare case of a long-lived composer who learned his craft in the late 14th century but primarily practiced during the era during which the Renaissance styles were forming.

## Life

The earliest records of Grenon are from [Paris](/source/Paris), where he worked first in the [Notre Dame Cathedral](/source/Notre_Dame_Cathedral), and on the death of his brother moved to a job at the [St Sépulchre](/source/St_S%C3%A9pulchre) as a [canon](/source/Canon_(priest)). He rose in the ecclesiastical hierarchy at St Sépulchre, and then left Paris, moving first to [Laon](/source/Laon) in 1403, and then [Cambrai](/source/Cambrai) in 1408. In 1409 he took a post for the Duke of Berry as the "master of the boys", the music teacher and caretaker of the choirboys, at [Bourges](/source/Bourges); and in 1412 he began his career with the [Burgundian](/source/Burgundian_School) court of [John the Fearless](/source/John_the_Fearless) (Duke of Burgundy). In 1419 he returned to Cambrai, and from 1425 to 1427 worked in [Rome](/source/Rome) as the master of the choirboys in the papal chapel under [Pope Martin V](/source/Pope_Martin_V).

He retired to Cambrai, where in the 1440s he worked with [Guillaume Dufay](/source/Guillaume_Dufay) on a complete revision of the [polyphonic](/source/Polyphonic) liturgical music of the cathedral. He died in Cambrai in 1456 after an unusually long life.

## Music and influence

Grenon's music shows aspects of both [medieval](/source/Medieval_music) and early Renaissance practice. His secular music is the most up-to-date, and includes examples of each of the prevailing *[formes fixes](/source/Formes_fixes)*, the *[ballade](/source/Ballade_(forme_fixe)),* the *[virelai](/source/Virelai),* and the *[rondeau](/source/Rondeau_(forme_fixe)).* The melody is always in the topmost voice, and all are for three voices.

The [motets](/source/Motet) by Grenon are unusual in their use of strict [isorhythmic](/source/Isorhythm) technique, usually in all voices. In some aspects they are similar to motets of Dufay, except for the strictness of the isorhythmic principle. One is datable to 1414, since it praises the [antipope John XXIII](/source/Antipope_John_XXIII), and probably corresponds to the opening of the [Council of Konstanz](/source/Council_of_Constance). Grenon also wrote [masses](/source/Mass_(music)), but none survive complete; only a fragment of a *[Gloria](/source/Gloria_in_excelsis_Deo)* remains, not enough to establish his stylistic technique for this type of composition.

### Works

Grenon's complete surviving works are edited in Gilbert Reaney, *Early Fifteenth-Century Music*, vol. 7 ([Rome]: [American Institute of Musicology](/source/American_Institute_of_Musicology), 1983. The only piece transmitted in more than two sources at the time of that publication was *Se je vous ay bien.* Several copies of *Je ne requier de ma dame*, however, have been discovered since Reaney's publication. The pieces are, in Reaney's order:

1. *Se je vous ay bien loyaulment amée* (rondeau)
1. *La plus jolie et la plus belle* (rondeau or through-composed chanson)
1. *Je suy defait se vous ne me refaites* (rondeau or unknown form)
1. *Je ne requier de ma dame* (ballade)
1. *La plus belle et doulce figure* (virelai)
1. *Et in terra* (Gloria; missing tenor?)
1. *Ave virtus virtutum, caritas / Prophetarum fulti suffragio / Infelix, propera* (motet)
1. *Ad honorem sancte trinitatis / Celorum regnum sempiternum / Isti semper celestibus* (motet)
1. *Plasmatoris humani generis / Verbigine mater ecclesia* (motet)
1. *Nova obis gaudia* (motet)

Craig Wright (Grove, 2001) argues for the ascription of *Argi vices/Cum Pilemon* (attributed in the Aosta codex to "Nicolao") to Grenon as well.

## References and further reading

- Wright, Craig. "Nicolas Grenon". Vol. vii. p. 702.
- idem. "Nicolas Grenon", *[Grove Music Online](/source/Grove_Dictionary_of_Music_and_Musicians)*, ed. L. Macy (accessed January 22, 2005), [grovemusic.com](http://www.grovemusic.com/) (subscription access).
- [Gustave Reese](/source/Gustave_Reese), *Music in the Renaissance*. New York, W.W. Norton & Co., 1954. ISBN 0-393-09530-4
- Richard H. Hoppin, *Medieval Music*. New York, W.W. Norton & Co., 1978. ISBN 0-393-09090-6

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Adapted from the Wikipedia article [Nicolas Grenon](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicolas_Grenon) by Wikipedia contributors ([contributor history](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicolas_Grenon?action=history)). Available under [Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Changes may have been made.