Nadia and Lili Boulanger

[ardcarp]

There was an interesting programme of choral music by the two sisters on R3 last evening:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0004n68

Although Nadia is chiefly known as a teacher, both she and especially her sister (who died tragically young) were no mean composers in their own right. I was lucky enough to have taken part in Lili's 3 Psalm Settings under the baton of Nadia...mamy, many moons ago. As a result I've been an advocate of their music ever since.

[edashtav]

[…]
Although Nadia is chiefly known as a teacher, […]

But, what a teacher, ardcarp. Here is the American composer Louise Talma (1906–1996) responding in interview to Bruce Duffie:

BD: You studied with Nadia Boulanger. What did she give you that was special?

LT What was special was that she was the first one who seemed to have an idea that I had a talent for composition, which so took me aback that it was really some time before I realized she really meant what she said. So she started me on the path to where I am now, and that was a big thing! I attended the summer school at Fontainebleau. I was there for fourteen summers in a row before the war. Then afterwards I would come back from time to time right up to the end of her life. I always wanted to bring whatever I was doing for her comments because she had an absolutely infallible ear! And she always put her finger right on the spot where something you knew yourself was not what it should be. The very last time I brought her something — which was one of the two things on a Musical Heritage Society recording — she said to me at one point in the close of the aria for the tenor, “You were a little easy-going there, weren’t you?” And I knew very well that I had been. I’d taken the first thing out that came along. I was so ashamed to think that after all those years she would see that right away.

[my emphasis]

[Richard Tarleton]

Copland said of her: "Nadia Boulanger knew everything there was to know about music; she knew the oldest and the latest music, pre-Bach and post-Stravinsky. All technical know-how was at her fingertips: harmonic transposition, the figured bass, score reading, organ registration, instrumental techniques, structural analyses, the school fugue and the free fugue, the Greek modes and Gregorian chant..."

Muriel Nissel, in her breathtakingly banal book "Married to the Amadeus" describes meeting, or at least seeing, her at Dartington: "...and the musicologist and teacher, Nadia Boulanger - spinsterish with her long grey hair framing her face, austere as she peered through her glasses, but immensely lively and brimming over with musical knowledge and advice". (Imogen Holst was also present: Muriel could probably have cut and pasted her description of Nadia to describe Imogen )

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

But, what a teacher, ardcarp. Here is the American composer Louise Talma (1906–1996) responding in interview to Bruce Duffie:

BD: You studied with Nadia Boulanger. What did she give you that was special?

LT What was special was that she was the first one who seemed to have an idea that I had a talent for composition, which so took me aback that it was really some time before I realized she really meant what she said. So she started me on the path to where I am now, and that was a big thing! I attended the summer school at Fontainebleau. I was there for fourteen summers in a row before the war. Then afterwards I would come back from time to time right up to the end of her life. I always wanted to bring whatever I was doing for her comments because she had an absolutely infallible ear! And she always put her finger right on the spot where something you knew yourself was not what it should be. The very last time I brought her something — which was one of the two things on a Musical Heritage Society recording — she said to me at one point in the close of the aria for the tenor, “You were a little easy-going there, weren’t you?” And I knew very well that I had been. I’d taken the first thing out that came along. I was so ashamed to think that after all those years she would see that right away.

[my emphasis]

"One repays a teacher badly if one remains forever a pupil"

[edashtav]

"One repays a teacher badly if one remains forever a pupil"

Nice advice, ferney...what a shame that Louise died too soon to benefit from your wisdom.

But... Nadia had a magnetic personality: it was easier to join than to leave her.

[ardcarp]

Nadia Boulanger - spinsterish with her long grey hair framing her face, austere as she peered through her glasses, but immensely lively and brimming over with musical knowledge and advice

Exactly as I remember her at the age of 80, quite frail and dressed in black, stepping onto the podium in front of the CBSO. 'How is she going to handle that lot', was our secret thought, not to mention 'and our massed choral ranks'. But there was no messing with Nadia. She immediately had the CBSO, then not quite such a world class orchestra as now, on their mettle. Nothing passed her incredible ear, and I'll swear they played better than I'd ever heard them before.