Nadia and Lili Boulanger were two extraordinary artists, who left their mark
each in her own way, two sisters who shared a common passion for music. Lili
Boulanger (1893-1918), although six years the junior, died from illness in
1918 at the age of twenty-four. Born in 1893, she showed unusual gifts from
her earliest years. A child prodigy, she learnt to read music and words at
the same time. She played piano, violin, cello, harp and organ, in which she
became proficient, just as she sang with ease. Her delicate health prevented
her, however, raising her skills to virtuoso level. She toook counterpoint
lessons at home, was taught composition by her teachers, and benefited musically
from family friends such as Gabriel Fauré and Raoul Pugno. But she really
patterned her life on her parents and her elder sister, all musicians. In
1913, Lili Boulanger went in for the Concours de Rome. She was the first woman
to receive this award, previously granted to men, across a range of artistic
disciplines. Her Premier Grand Prix de Rome de Composition Musicale was given
in recognition of her cantata, Faust et Hélène. Like other award
winners, she lived at the Villa Medicis in Rome. Her four masterpieces, Psalm
24, Psalm 129, Psalm 130 and the Old Buddhist Prayer, composed
in Italy between 1916 and 1917, were scored for orchestra, choir and soloists.
Her highly personal style was in advance of her time. Her works, at their
best, notably Pie Jesu, which she dictated on her deathbed note by note to
her sister Nadia, attain deep yet serene emotion.
Composer herself, but above all an extraordinary teacher, Nadia Boulanger
(1887-1979) drew around her home on rue Ballu, or at the Ecole Normale de
Musique as well as the Paris National Conservatory, and also at her numerous
master classes generations of musicians who came from all over the world.
Her countless Master classes attracted virtuosos the world over. From 1921
until the end of her days, she taught the many American students who attended
the Conservatoire américain at Fontainebleau. They were fascinated by her
all-encompassing culture and knowledge, by her intelligence and by the richness
of her teaching, as well as by her exemplary rigour. Execution was as important
as theory. A pianist and organist in her yound days, she became an extraordinary
conductor, and was a revered leader of major symphonic orchestras at time
when most of them had never known a woman at their head. Among the renowned
orchestras who benefited from her talent were the London Philharmonic, and
the symphony orchestras of New York, Boston and Philadelphia. She is known
to have given some three thousand concerts, as the conductor of an astonishing
variety of scores, from all centuries and musical schools, although she particularly
relished conducting her own Ensemble vocal. Music lovers were introduced
by her to Monteverdi in 1937, and her celebrated recording of the Madrigals
remains in many respects unequalled. This much loved recording was first made
at 78 rpm and then 33. Demand for it down the years has never flagged : it
is now available on CD.
The Fondation internationale Nadia et Lili Boulanger was set up to
keep alive the memory of these two quite unusually gifted and influencial
women, musicians whose lives breathed inspiration in their own time and beyond.
(Alexandra Laederich, 2004)