Lili Boulanger (1893-1918); FRA

Lili Boulanger (1893–1918) was a French composer whose brief life produced a small but remarkably accomplished body of music. Born in Paris into a distinguished musical family, she was the younger sister of Nadia Boulanger and daughter of the composer and voice teacher Ernest Boulanger. Frail health affected her from childhood, but she displayed exceptional musical gifts and studied composition at the Paris Conservatoire with teachers including Paul Vidal and Georges Caussade. In 1913, at the age of nineteen, she became the first woman to win the prestigious Prix de Rome for composition, receiving the prize for her cantata Faust et Hélène. The achievement brought her international attention, but chronic illness repeatedly interrupted her work. During the First World War she and Nadia also assisted musicians serving at the front. Lili Boulanger died in 1918 at the age of twenty-four, leaving several projects unfinished.

Boulanger’s music combines French harmonic refinement and luminous orchestral color with an unusually intense expressive and spiritual character. Her mature works reveal a highly individual voice despite her youth, often employing modal harmony, fluid chromaticism, striking contrasts of texture, and imaginative treatment of voices and instruments. Important compositions include the psalm settings Psalm 24, Psalm 129, and the expansive Psalm 130: Du fond de l'abîme, as well as the orchestral diptych D'un matin de printemps and D'un soir triste. Her final completed work, Pie Jesu, written while she was gravely ill, has an austere and haunting simplicity. Although her career lasted only a few years, the originality and technical assurance of her surviving music established Boulanger as a significant early twentieth-century composer whose reputation has grown steadily since her death.

###

Read biography at allmusic.com.