Forgotten Composers: Lili Boulanger

Juliette-Marie Olga Boulanger (1893-1918) was the young sister of influential music educator Nadia Boulanger. Besides composition and music theory, she studied piano, organ, violin, cello, and harp. She was the first woman to compete (in 1912) and win the Prix de Rome (in 1913).

Unfortunately she was chronically ill since her early childhood and passed away at 24. Many of her compositions are either unfinished or lost. Conductor Igor Markevitch (among others) praised her work greatly and claimed she would have been one of the greatest composers of the 20th century, given time.

Read more about Lili Boulanger on Wikipedia.

See also here to learn more about her music (you can also listen to short audio clips on this page.)

Fondation Internationale Nadia et Lili Boulanger

Tags: France, Lili Boulanger, composer

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Roy The Infidel on April 28, 2010 at 11:01pm

Jaume, I dunno if it is just me but the last link (to short audio clips) appears broken?

Amazing genius. Oh, she sang, too. I am excited to know more about Ms. Boulanger and her works that touched mostly on themes of grief and loss. This is just the stuff that fuels my day. Thank you for this post and for introducing once again, Ms. Lili Boulanger.

Permalink Reply by Jaume on April 29, 2010 at 3:00am

Strange. To me the link works fine. What kind of error do you get?

Permalink Reply by Roy The Infidel on April 29, 2010 at 5:15am

Odd. I keep getting this.

Permalink Reply by Jaume on April 29, 2010 at 5:37am

Dunno. The alternate address (oboemusic.com) works for me too. Either the site was down when you tried to access it, or for some mysterious reason it's not available in your country (although this seems unlikely.)

Permalink Reply by Shine on April 29, 2010 at 9:39am

Neat! I really want to find a cellist and play this piece by Nadia:

Although my technique is still so poor that it would take me a year to learn the piano portion, lol. ;)

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