25 Facts About Lili Boulanger

Lili Boulanger's mother, Raissa Myshetskaya, was a Russian princess who married her Paris Conservatoire teacher, Ernest Boulanger, who won the Prix de Rome in 1835.

Lili Boulanger's father was 77 years old when she was born and she became very attached to him.

Lili 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.

Lili Boulanger sang and played piano, violin, cello and harp.

Lili Boulanger's teachers included Marcel Tournier and Alphonse Hasselmans for harp, Mme Helene Chaumont for piano and Fernand Luquin for violin.

However, Lili Boulanger was not allowed to work on her musical studies due to her pneumonia from 6 years old until she was 16 years old.

In 1912, Lili Boulanger competed in the Prix de Rome but during her performance she collapsed from illness.

Lili Boulanger returned in 1913 at the age of 19 to win the composition prize for her cantata Faust et Helene, becoming the first woman to win the prize.

Lili Boulanger was greatly affected by the 1900 death of her father; many of her works touch on themes of grief and loss.

Lili Boulanger's work was noted for its colorful harmony and instrumentation and skillful text setting.

Allegedly, Lili Boulanger had almost completed the opera before her death, though only the short score of act 1, scene 2, two versions of the libretto, and a sketchbook have survived.

Lili Boulanger suffered from chronic illness, beginning with a case of bronchial pneumonia at age two that weakened her immune system, leading to the intestinal tuberculosis that ended her life at the age of 24.

Lili Boulanger's death left unfinished the opera La princesse Maleine on which she had spent most of her last years.

In 1979, her sister Nadia Lili Boulanger was buried in the same tomb.

Lili Boulanger grew up in a time of musical transition and her music fits easily into what was becoming defined as a post-Romantic style.

Lili Boulanger used this piece as a preparation for the Prix de Rome competition, and from it one can see her firm grounding in the classical technique taught at the Conservatoire.

Lili Boulanger uses this technique as a starting point and employs many devices popular at that time to create a personal and clear statement.

Lili Boulanger depicts this scene as vividly as she possibly can.

Lili Boulanger uses a pedal tone on F combined with ascending C octaves at the beginning to portray the mesmerizing effect of the sirens.

Lili Boulanger uses this effect for twenty-eight measures, in effect, lulling listeners into a trance-like sleep.

Lili Boulanger composed three psalm settings: Psalms 24,129 and 130.

Lili Boulanger composed Psalm 24, entitled La terre appartient a l'Eternel, in 1916 while she was resident in Rome.

Lili Boulanger's score uses brass fanfares and homophonic choral passages: the contrast of sections contrast to the style of her 1912 Prix de Rome-winning cantata, Faust et Helene, as heard in Yan Pascal Tortelier's recording.

The work, completed when Lili Boulanger was aged only twenty-two, sounds mature and conveys a developed compositional style.

Scholars such as biographer Leonie Rosenstiel and Olivia Mattis speculate that Lili Boulanger intended to write a complete Requiem Mass but did not live to complete it.