Lili Boulanger - determined femme fragile
Dreamlike mystic music by an exceptional composer and feminist icon you just absolutely have to listen to.
Foto: George Grantham Bain Collection, Library of Congress
Conductor Walter Damrosch once declared: “There will never be a great woman composer.” One woman changed his mind: Lili Boulanger, the composer so competent, that despite her short life and poor health she managed to become extremely accomplished. Denouncing his former belief, Damrosch stated: “Lili Boulanger is the greatest woman composer the world has ever seen.”
Marie Juliette Olga (Lili, quite unclear where that came from, let us assign it to the fact that in French it connotes innocence and purity) Boulanger, was born in 1893 to a prestigious Parisian family. Her mother Raïssa, a Russian princess (although such claims were never confirmed), married the composer (and her singing teacher), Ernest Boulanger. Both Lili and her older sister Nadia (who would also become a very influential composer) showed an incredible talent for music, admired even by Faure himself. Lili played violin, cello, harp, and organ. She survived pneumonia, but Crohn’s disease would tail her throughout her life. In 1900 her father Ernest died, leaving the three Boulanger women on their own. Shortly after, she decided to become a composer and attended Paris Conservatoire.
Sweet and deadly: Siren-song in monetesque sea setting
Influenced by Debussy (he wrote a piece with the same title), in 1911 Lili composed Les sirenes for soprano solo, choir, and piano, based on a poem by Charles Grandmougin. An impressionistic piano paints the sea (just like Monet), a choir of sirens invites us into their mesmerising world, while the solo soprano lulls us into a sweet dream of death.
“We are the beauty which charms the strongest men.
Trembling flowers of foam
And mist,
Our fleeing kisses are the dream of the dead!”
Her early compositions can be perceived as preparation for the Grand Prix de Rome, a competition she decided to win. Established in the 17th century, it was won by Bizet, Debussy, Berlioz, and Lili’s father Ernest Boulanger among others. The competition has become opened for female participants only in 1903, after 3 centuries of male exclusivity. Among the first women taking part was her sister Nadia. Lili first attended the competition in 1912, but due to health issues, she had to draw back. However, in the subsequent year, she won aged only 19. She was the first woman ever to win this prize.
Participants in the final round had to compose a piece based on Eugene Adlin's poem Faust et Helene, inspired by Goethe's Faust (not the famous first but the second part, where Faust wakes Helen of Troy). Boulanger composed a cantata for choir, orchestra, tenor (Faust), baritone (Mephistopheles), and mezzo (Helene).
She perfumes the scenery in the mists of restlessness as Faust beseeches Mephistopheles to awake Helen from the dead. And suddenly, losing the restlessness with one chord, she introduces us to tranquil harmonies, serene melodies, as if Boulanger herself would have woken Helen. The whole piece pulls us into a dreamy reality where it seems perfectly normal to sell one's soul to Mephistopheles.
Her stay in Rome was cut short by World War I. Boulanger has returned to Paris, where she and her sister Nadia established the Franco-American Committee, providing help to fighting musicians and their families. She started composing her unfortunately unfinished opera La princesse Maleine written by Maurice Maeterlinck. It is said that Maeterlinck, though asked by many, even Debussy, did not give the libretto to anyone. That is, until he met Boulanger.
Disappearing tonalities like oil on water
In 1914 Boulanger received the text of an old Buddhist prayer from Sanskrit-expert Suzanne Karpeles. It was not until 1917 that Lili finished the work for tenor solo, orchestra, and choir. For Vieille priere bouddhique; Priere quotidienne pour tout l’Univers (Old Buddhist Prayer; Daily prayer for the whole universe) she used an old church modus (the Phrygian scale). The choir and orchestra set a transcendental scenery, out of which emerges a flute solo. The tenor floats with a calm and clear melodic line above surprising harmonies, disappearing tonality like oil on water. A timeless prayer for the world constantly stuck somewhere between suffering and hope.
“In the Orient and the Occident
in the North and the South,
let every being which existeth,
without a foe, without hindrance,
pain and sorrow transcend,
at last, attain peace and joy”
Lili’s health continued to deteriorate. One cannot say she was fading away, for although bound to the bed she continued to compose. Unable to write, she dictated her last piece to Nadia. Pie Jesu is her last prayer, her Requiem. Very Mozart-like, isn't it? She died shortly after, in 1918, aged only 24. In her 10 active years, she composed around 50 works, her sister Nadia continued her legacy.
Lili should not be perceived under the veil of the romanticised tragic female artist but as a strong individual, determined intellectual and an outstanding artist.