NADIA

BOULANGER

     

Accomplished French teacher, composer, and conductor, Nadia Juliette Boulanger was born on September 16, 1887, into a family of well-known musicians. Her paternal grandmother, Marie Julie Boulanger, sang for the Opéra-Comique, and her father, Ernest, was an esteemed pianist and professor at the Paris Conservatoire de Musique. Boulanger’s younger sister, Lili (1893–1918), later became one of the most celebrated French female composers of her time, as well as the first woman to earn the prestigious Premier Grand Prix de Rome. She owed much to the guidance and direction of Nadia.

Boulanger applied herself to learning music under the rigid discipline of her mother. By the time she was five years old, she could read music fluently. She enrolled in classes at the Paris Conservatoire where she took accompaniment with Paul Vidal, and composition with Gabriel FAURÉ and Louis Vierne. Boulanger also studied organ with Alexandre Guilmant. Although Boulanger was no musical “wunderkind,” she worked diligently and in 1903 won the Premier Prix in harmony at the Conservatoire. Five years later, at the age of 21, she was awarded the second Grand Prix de Rome for the composition of her cantata “La sirène.”

THE TEACHER OF MASTERS

From 1920 to 1939, Boulanger taught harmony, counterpoint, and music history at the Ecole Normale de Musique. She also became a professor of the Conservatoire Américain at Fontainebleau in 1921, succeeding Robert Casadesus 29 years later as its director. Her courses filled so quickly that enrolment had to be limited. Students who attended her studio at the Rue Ballu in Paris were taught to analyse and criticise all types of music, revered or not. Some of her better known pupils included Aaron COPLAND, Virgil THOMSON, Roger Sessions, Walter Piston, and Elliott CARTER. At the outbreak of World War II, Boulanger moved to the U.S. where she continued teaching with positions at Wellesley, Radcliffe College, and at the Juilliard School of Music. All together, her students numbered in the hundreds.

PRACTISING WHAT SHE PREACHED

Although Boulanger stands out as a teacher, she also worked as a conductor. During a visit to the U.S. in the late 1930s, she became the first woman to conduct the Boston Symphony Orchestra (1938), as well as the New York Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra (1939). She was also the first female to conduct an entire programme for London’s Royal Philharmonic. The little composing that she did took place earlier, in the years before she concentrated on teaching. She collaborated closely with one of her dear friends, Raoul Pugno, turning composition into a dual project. Together they wrote the music for Gabriele d’Annunzio’s drama, Citta morte, in 1911. Her works include the Rhapsodie variée for piano and orchestra, first performed in February 1913, which she dedicated to Pugno.

In 1977, Boulanger was made Grand Officer of the Legion of Honour by President Giscard d’Estaing. Other honours bestowed on her included the Médaille d’Or of the Académie des Beaux-Arts, and the Médaille de Vermeil of the Ville de Paris. Among her many achievements was the establishment of a Lili Boulanger Memorial Fund, intended to promote and keep alive the work of her sister. After decades as one of the pre-eminent teachers of the 20th century, Boulanger died in Paris on October 22, 1979-The New York Herald Tribune proclaimed her as a woman who “in the full maturity of her career … has enriched her time.”

Joanne Hsia

SEE ALSO:

CHAMBER MUSIC; ORCHESTRAL MUSIC.

FURTHER READING

Kendall, Alan. The Tender Tyrant
(London: MacDonald and Jane’s, 1976);

Monsaingeon, Bruno. Mademoiselle: Conversations with Nadia Boulanger (Manchester: Carcanet, 1985);

Spycket, Jerome. Nadia Boulanger
(Stuyvesant, NY: Pendragon Press, 1992).

SUGGESTED LISTENING

Three Pieces for Cello and Piano; Lux Aeterna;

Elliott Carter: Double Concerto for Piano and Harpsichord;

Aaron Copland: Organ Symphony.