Lili Boulanger
Encyclopedia
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
composer
Composer
A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...
, the younger sister of the noted composer and composition teacher Nadia Boulanger
Nadia Boulanger
Nadia Boulanger was a French composer, conductor and teacher who taught many composers and performers of the 20th century.From a musical family, she achieved early honours as a student at the Paris Conservatoire, but believing that her talent as a composer was inferior to that of her younger...
.
Early years
A ParisParis
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
ian-born child prodigy, who was good at piano. Boulanger's talent was apparent even at the age of two, spotted by her parents, both of whom were musicians themselves, and they encouraged their daughter's musical education. Her father was 77 years old when Lili was born and she became very attached to him. Her mother, Raissa Myshetskaya (Mischetzky), was a Russian princess, who married her Paris Conservatoire teacher, Ernest Boulanger; grandfather Frédéric Boulanger had been a noted cellist, and grandmother Juliette a singer. Boulanger accompanied the ten-year-old Nadia to classes at the Paris Conservatoire before she was five, shortly thereafter sitting in on classes on music theory
Music theory
Music theory is the study of how music works. It examines the language and notation of music. It seeks to identify patterns and structures in composers' techniques across or within genres, styles, or historical periods...
and studying organ
Organ (music)
The organ , is a keyboard instrument of one or more divisions, each played with its own keyboard operated either with the hands or with the feet. The organ is a relatively old musical instrument in the Western musical tradition, dating from the time of Ctesibius of Alexandria who is credited with...
with Louis Vierne
Louis Vierne
Louis Victor Jules Vierne was a French organist and composer.-Life:Louis Vierne was born in Poitiers, Vienne, nearly blind due to congenital cataracts, but at an early age was discovered to have an unusual gift for music. Louis Victor Jules Vierne (8 October 1870 – 2 June 1937) was a French...
; she also sang and played piano
Piano
The piano is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It is one of the most popular instruments in the world. Widely used in classical and jazz music for solo performances, ensemble use, chamber music and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal...
, violin
Violin
The violin is a string instrument, usually with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest, highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which includes the viola and cello....
, cello
Cello
The cello is a bowed string instrument with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is a member of the violin family of musical instruments, which also includes the violin, viola, and double bass. Old forms of the instrument in the Baroque era are baryton and viol .A person who plays a cello is...
, and harp
Harp
The harp is a multi-stringed instrument which has the plane of its strings positioned perpendicularly to the soundboard. Organologically, it is in the general category of chordophones and has its own sub category . All harps have a neck, resonator and strings...
. Amongst her teachers were Marcel Tournier and Alphonse Hasselmans.
In 1912 she competed in the Prix de Rome
Prix de Rome
The Prix de Rome was a scholarship for arts students, principally of painting, sculpture, and architecture. It was created, initially for painters and sculptors, in 1663 in France during the reign of Louis XIV. It was an annual bursary for promising artists having proved their talents by...
but during her performance she collapsed from illness.
Career
In 1913, at the age of 19, she won the Prix de RomePrix de Rome
The Prix de Rome was a scholarship for arts students, principally of painting, sculpture, and architecture. It was created, initially for painters and sculptors, in 1663 in France during the reign of Louis XIV. It was an annual bursary for promising artists having proved their talents by...
for her Faust et Hélène, becoming the first woman composer to win the prize. Nadia had given up entering after four unsuccessful attempts and had focused her efforts upon her sister Lili, first a student of Nadia and then of Paul Vidal
Paul Vidal
Paul Antoine Vidal was a French composer, conductor and music teacher.Paul Vidal was born in Toulouse. He studied at the conservatoires in Toulouse and in Paris, under Jules Massenet in the latter. He won the Prix de Rome in 1883, one year before Claude Debussy did...
, Georges Caussade
Georges Caussade
Georges Caussade was a French composer, music theorist, and music educator. Born in Port Louis, Mauritius, he joined the faculty of the Conservatoire de Paris in 1905 as a teacher of counterpoint. He began teaching fugue at the school as well in 1921; a position his wife, composer Simone...
, and Gabriel Fauré
Gabriel Fauré
Gabriel Urbain Fauré was a French composer, organist, pianist and teacher. He was one of the foremost French composers of his generation, and his musical style influenced many 20th century composers...
—the last of whom was greatly impressed by the young woman's talents and frequently brought songs for her to read. Lili was greatly affected by the 1899 death of her father; many of her works touch on themes of grief and loss. Her work was noted for its colorful harmony and instrumentation and skillful text setting; aspects of Fauré and Claude Debussy
Claude Debussy
Claude-Achille Debussy was a French composer. Along with Maurice Ravel, he was one of the most prominent figures working within the field of impressionist music, though he himself intensely disliked the term when applied to his compositions...
can be seen in her compositions, and Arthur Honegger
Arthur Honegger
Arthur Honegger was a Swiss composer, who was born in France and lived a large part of his life in Paris. He was a member of Les six. His most frequently performed work is probably the orchestral work Pacific 231, which is interpreted as imitating the sound of a steam locomotive.-Biography:Born...
was one composer influenced by her innovative work. Jazz pianist Herbie Hancock
Herbie Hancock
Herbert Jeffrey "Herbie" Hancock is an American pianist, bandleader and composer. As part of Miles Davis's "second great quintet," Hancock helped to redefine the role of a jazz rhythm section and was one of the primary architects of the "post-bop" sound...
has said she is one of his favorite composers.
Illness and premature death
Her life and work were troubled by chronic illness, beginning with a case of bronchial pneumoniaPneumonia
Pneumonia is an inflammatory condition of the lung—especially affecting the microscopic air sacs —associated with fever, chest symptoms, and a lack of air space on a chest X-ray. Pneumonia is typically caused by an infection but there are a number of other causes...
at age two that weakened her immune system, leading to the intestinal tuberculosis (now called Crohn's Disease
Crohn's disease
Crohn's disease, also known as regional enteritis, is a type of inflammatory bowel disease that may affect any part of the gastrointestinal tract from mouth to anus, causing a wide variety of symptoms...
) that cut her life short at the early age of 24. Although she loved to travel, completing several works in Italy after winning the Prix de Rome, her failing health forced her to return home, where she and Nadia organized efforts to support French soldiers during World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
. Her last years were also a productive time musically as she labored to complete works previously left unfinished. Boulanger died in Mézy-sur-Seine
Mézy-sur-Seine
Mézy-sur-Seine is a commune in the Yvelines department in the Île-de-France region in north-central France.-References:*...
and was buried in Paris, in a tomb located in the Cimetière de Montmartre, leaving unfinished the opera La princesse Maleine on which she spent most of the last years of her life. In 1979 her sister Nadia Boulanger
Nadia Boulanger
Nadia Boulanger was a French composer, conductor and teacher who taught many composers and performers of the 20th century.From a musical family, she achieved early honours as a student at the Paris Conservatoire, but believing that her talent as a composer was inferior to that of her younger...
was laid to rest in the same tomb. The definitive biography is The Life and Works of Lili Boulanger (ISBN 0-8386-1796-4) by the American musicologist Léonie Rosenstiel.
Wellesley College created an international foundation and award in her name (LBMF) to annually honor an outstanding young composer or performer. Awarded the prize were composers such as Harold Shapero
Harold Shapero
Harold Samuel Shapero is an American composer.-Early years:Born in Lynn, Massachusetts, Shapero and his family later moved to nearby Newton. He learned to play the piano as a child, and for some years was a pianist in dance orchestras. With a friend, he founded the Hal Kenny Orchestra, a swing-era...
and instrumentalists such as Robert D. Levin
Robert D. Levin
Robert D. Levin is a classical performer, musicologist, and composer, and is the Artistic Director of the Sarasota Music Festival.-Education:...
, Noël Lee
Noël Lee
Noël Lee is an American classical pianist and composer living in Paris, France.He studied music in Lafayette, Indiana, then attended Harvard University, studying with Walter Piston, Irving Fine, and Tillman Merritt and was also a student at the Longy School of Music in the early 1940s...
and Sebastien Koch.
The asteroid
Asteroid
Asteroids are a class of small Solar System bodies in orbit around the Sun. They have also been called planetoids, especially the larger ones...
1181 Lilith
1181 Lilith
The asteroid 1181 Lilith is a main belt asteroid discovered February 11, 1927 by Benjamin Jekhowsky. It was given the provisional designation 1927 CQ....
was named in her honor.
Selected works
- Faust et Hélène, cantata for mezzo-soprano, tenor, baritone, and orchestra (1913)
- D'un matin de printemps, orchestra (1917-18)
- D'un soir triste, orchestra (1917-18)
- Les Sirènes, soprano, female choir and piano (1911)
- Psaume 24, tenor, choir, organ, and orchestra (1916)
- Psaume 129
- Psaume 130Psalm 130Psalm 130 , traditionally De profundis from its Latin incipit, is one of the Penitential psalms.-Commentary:...
(Du fond de l'abîme) - alto, tenor, choir, organ, and orchestra (1910-17) - Vieille prière bouddhique
- Pie Jesu
External links
- Women of Note: Nadia and Lili Boulanger (with audio clips)
- Photographs of Lili Boulanger's grave
- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mnL8Ucku7co&feature=related.Lili Boulanger: Nocturne played by Gregor PiatigorskyGregor PiatigorskyGregor Piatigorsky was a Russian-born American cellist.-Early life:...
and Valentin Pavlovsky]