On today’s date in 1893, French composer Lili Boulanger was born in Paris.
In 1913, when she was 20, Boulanger became the first woman to win the prestigious Prix de Rome for her cantata Faust and Helen, an achievement which was headline news in those days. Her father, Ernst, had he lived to see it, would have been especially proud, since he too, was a composer and had won the Prix de Rome in 1835.
The Boulangers were a remarkably talented family, it seems, and it’s one of music history’s saddest “what-might-have-beens” to consider what Lili might have accomplished if she had lived as long as her gifted older sister, Nadia, who died at 92 after a long career as the world’s most famous composition teacher. Nadia could count among her pupils several generations of famous American composers, ranging from Aaron Copland to Philip Glass.
Boulanger suffered from Crohn’s disease, and died at just 24, in 1918. Despite her frail health and tragically short life, she left behind a small body of vocal and instrumental works that are still performed. Her Psalm settings in particular are admired for their solemnity and deep spirit.
Lili Boulanger (1893-1918): D’un Matin de Printemps; Olivier Charlier, violin; Emile Naoumoff, piano; Marco Polo 8.223636