Nicolas Formé (1567-1638) from Paris almost certainly got his initial musical training at a choir school. He went on to become a cantor in the Sainte-Chapelle in Paris and then in the Royal Chapel at Versailles. On the death of Du Caurroy in 1609 he took over as assistant Master of Music. He served Henri IV for 18 years and Louis XIII for a further 28 years. The latter was a great lover of music and so Formé's work that he kept them in a special chest to which only he had the key. Formé was a highly sensitive artist but left few traces of his great talent. He is mainly famous for his two choir Mass, followed by his motet to the Virgin Mary, Ecce tu pulchra es. Forgetting about his predecessor Eustache Du Caurroy's work in the same genre, Formé boasted that he was one of the first French composers to import the Italian double choir composition (a small one featuring four soloists and a large choir). The choirs enter a dialogue and unite at the end. Formé innovated by injecting lightness into the Latin motet, his jaunty rhythm fitting naturally into the triumphalist architecture of counter Reformation churches.
