Nicolas de La Grotte

Nicolas de La Grotte (also La Crotte) (1530 – c. 1600) was a French composer and keyboard player of the Renaissance. He was well known as a performer on the organ and on the spinet, as well as a composer of chansons. In addition, he was one of very few French composers of the 16th century with a surviving composition written specifically for the keyboard. Life Nothing is known about his early life; the first record of La Grotte’s life is from 1557, when he was employed as a keyboard player (organ and spinet) to the King of Navarre, Antoine de Bourbon, at Pau in southwestern France. In 1562 he was given a position with the Duke of Anjou, along with Guillaume Costeley, and when the Duke of Anjou became King Henry III of France in 1574, La Grotte acquired the prestigious post of ‘vallet de chambre et organiste ordinaire’. His reputation as an organist seems to have been high; several writers in the early 1580s, such as La Croix du Maine and Jean Dorat, praised his playing. Between 1586 and 1589 he attempted to purchase land outside of Paris (whether he was successful is not known) and he went to Tours during the 1590 siege of Paris, where he stayed with the as-yet-uncrowned Henry IV o