Guillaume-Gabriel Nivers

He was the youngest child of Antoine Nivers, tax farmer to the Bishop of Paris, who died in 1635, and Geneviève Guignard. Shortly after 1643 the family left the parish of Saint-Paul for the Left Bank. His musical training is little known: the French Wikipedia article regards as hypothetical both a period among the choirboys of Saint-Sulpice and lessons with Chambonnières, whose influence on his works is nonetheless clear; the German article names Chambonnières as his teacher, and perhaps Henri Du Mont. He became a maître ès arts of the University of Paris in 1662 (in 1661 according to the German article).

He became organist of Saint-Sulpice, his parish church, between 1651 and 1653, probably succeeding Vincent Coppeau; Musicologie.org gives 1654. His salary, three hundred livres and later four and five hundred, including the blower’s wages, was more modest than that of other Parisian organists. According to the Wikipedia articles, he handed over the loft in 1702 to his nephew and pupil Jean-Baptiste Totin; Musicologie.org keeps him there until his death. He married Anne Esnault on 21 September 1668; she died in 1688. Their only son, Gabriel-Joseph, who joined the Lazarists, died in 1690, or 1691 according to the German article.

The Livre d’orgue contenant cent pièces de tous les tons de l’Église appeared in 1665, published by the author and Robert Ballard and engraved by Luders; it opens with Observations sur le toucher et jeu de l’orgue, dealing with fingering, ornaments, inequality and registration. The second book, in 1667, contains the mass and hymns of the Church; the third, in 1675, engraved by Gillet, the eight church tones. More than two hundred pieces in all, mostly short versets meant to alternate with the choir. The English article notes that the 1665 book is the earliest surviving printed collection in the forms of the French school, Louis Couperin having left only manuscripts.

Preludes, fugues and cantus firmus pieces preserve the counterpoint of the Church; duos, récits and dialogues come from the dance, the instrumental solo and the air. The German article sees in his versets à deux chœurs the origin of the dialogue. Nivers was also an organ expert: he was called in 1683 to approve the organ of Saint-Germain-l’Auxerrois, and in 1687 that of the chapel at Versailles.

On 19 June 1678, after the death of Jacques Chabanceau de La Barre, he was appointed organist of the Chapel Royal by quarter, with Nicolas Lebègue, Jacques Thomelin and Jean-Baptiste Buterne; he had the July quarter. The sources disagree on the date of this division. The articles on Nivers and Lebègue place it in 1678; the article on the Chapelle royale dates it to 1693, after the arrival of François Couperin, with the same allocation: January for Couperin, April for Buterne, July for Nivers, October for Lebègue. Nivers resigned his post in 1708 in favour of Louis Marchand.

In 1681 he succeeded Henri Du Mont as master of music to the Queen, alternating with Paolo Lorenzani, until the death of Maria Theresa in 1683. That year he failed in the competition for the sous-maîtres of the Chapel Royal; he failed again, in 1696 according to the French article, in 1698 according to the German, at the Sainte-Chapelle, where Marc-Antoine Charpentier was chosen.

In 1686 he took charge of the music at the Maison royale de Saint-Louis at Saint-Cyr, founded for poor girls of noble birth, alongside Jean-Baptiste Moreau; he played the harpsichord there for Racine’s Esther and Athalie, despite disagreements with Madame de Maintenon. The French article has him in post until his death while dating Louis-Nicolas Clérambault’s arrival to 1704; the English article and Musicologie.org speak of a collaboration from about 1710.

Plainchant occupied him all his life. From 1658 he published graduals and antiphoners for Benedictine, Augustinian and Franciscan nuns, then for the Premonstratensians, Cluny and the Roman use; his Dissertation sur le chant grégorien of 1683 argues for a revision faithful to the ancient rules. His edition of the mass Cunctipotens genitor Deus served as the model for most French organ masses. His Traité de la composition de musique (1667) was translated into Dutch, and L’Art d’accompagner sur la basse continue (1689) is one of the first French texts on continuo.

He died on 30 November 1714, or the 13th according to the English article. The French article credits him with a fortune of two hundred thousand livres and land; the German article speaks of land and a library of two hundred thousand volumes, and says he was buried with the nuns of the Saint-Sacrement.