Lili Boulanger, classical music composer

Lili Boulanger image

Lili Boulanger

Biography

Marie-Juliette Olga Lili Boulanger (21 August 1893 – 15 March 1918) was a French composer, the younger sister of the noted composer and composition teacher Nadia Boulanger.

A Parisian-born child prodigy, Boulanger's talent was apparent even at the age of two, when Gabriel Fauré (a friend of the family and later one of Boulanger's teachers) discovered she had perfect pitch. Her parents, both of whom were musicians themselves, 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 her ten-year-old sister Nadia to classes at the Paris Conservatoire before she was five, shortly thereafter sitting in on classes on music theory and studying organ with Louis Vierne; she also sang and played piano, violin, cello and harp. Amongst her teachers were Marcel Tournier and Alphonse Hasselmans.

In 1912 Boulanger competed in the Prix de Rome but during her performance she collapsed from illness. She returned in 1913, at the age of 19, to win the composition prize 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, Georges Caussade and Gabriel Fauré—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 can be seen in her compositions, and Arthur Honegger was one composer influenced by her innovative work.

Her life and work were troubled by chronic illness, beginning with a case of bronchial pneumonia at age two that weakened her immune system, leading to the intestinal tuberculosis (now called Crohn's disease) 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. Her last years were also a productive time musically as she labored to complete works previously left unfinished. Boulanger died in Mézy-sur-Seine 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 was laid to rest in the same tomb. The definitive biography is The Life and Works of Lili Boulanger by the American musicologist Léonie Rosenstiel.

(from wikipedia.org)


Composer Title Date Action
Lili Boulanger Lili Boulanger: Clairières dans le ciel Nr. 7 07/20/2013 Play
Lili Boulanger Cortège 09/24/2014 Play Add to playlist
Lili Boulanger D'un matin de printemps 12/07/2016 Play Add to playlist
Lili Boulanger Two Pieces for Violin and Piano 01/29/2021 Play Add to playlist
Lili Boulanger Pie Jesu 08/14/2022 Play Add to playlist