Nadia Boulanger

Juliette Nadia Boulanger (; 16 September 188722 October 1979) was a French music teacher and conductor. She taught many of the leading composers and musicians of the 20th century, and also performed occasionally as a pianist and organist.

From a musical family, she achieved early honours as a student at the Conservatoire de Paris but, believing that she had no particular talent as a composer, she gave up writing music and became a teacher. In that capacity, she influenced generations of young composers, especially those from the United States and other English-speaking countries. Among her students were many important composers, soloists, arrangers, and conductors, including Grażyna Bacewicz, Burt Bacharach, Daniel Barenboim, Lennox Berkeley, İdil Biret, Elliott Carter, Aaron Copland, John Eliot Gardiner, Philip Glass, Roy Harris, Quincy Jones, Dinu Lipatti, Igor Markevitch, Astor Piazzolla, Virgil Thomson, and George Walker.

Boulanger taught in the U.S. and England, working with music academies including the Juilliard School, the Yehudi Menuhin School, the Longy School, the Royal College of Music and the Royal Academy of Music, but her principal base for most of her life was her family's flat in Paris, where she taught for most of the seven decades from the start of her career until her death at the age of 92.

Boulanger was the first woman to conduct many major orchestras in America and Europe, including the BBC Symphony, Boston Symphony, Hallé, and Philadelphia orchestras. She conducted several world premieres, including works by Copland and Stravinsky.

Biography

Early life and education

Nadia Boulanger was born in Paris on 16 September 1887, to French composer and pianist Ernest Boulanger (1815–1900) and his wife Raissa Myshetskaya (1856–1935), a Russian princess, who descended from St. Mikhail Tchernigovsky.

Ernest Boulanger had studied at the Paris Conservatoire and, in 1835 at the age of 20, won the coveted Prix de Rome for composition. He wrote comic operas and incidental music for plays, but was most widely known for his choral music. He achieved distinction as a director of choral groups, teacher of voice, and a member of choral competition juries. After years of rejection, in 1872 he was appointed to the Paris Conservatoire as professor of singing.

Raissa qualified as a home tutor (or governess) in 1873. According to Ernest, he and Raissa met in Russia in 1873, and she followed him back to Paris. She joined his voice class at the Conservatoire in 1876, and they were married in Russia in 1877.
Ernest and Raissa had a daughter, Ernestine Mina Juliette, who died as an infant before Nadia was born on her father's 72nd birthday.

Through her early years, although both parents were very active musically, Nadia would get upset by hearing music and hide until it stopped. In 1892, when Nadia was five, Raissa became pregnant again. During the pregnancy, Nadia's response to music changed drastically. "One day I heard a fire bell. Instead of crying out and hiding, I rushed to the piano and tried to reproduce the sounds. My parents were amazed." After this, Boulanger paid great attention to the singing lessons her father gave, and began to study the rudiments of music.

Her sister, named Marie-Juliette Olga but known as Lili Boulanger, was born in 1893, when Nadia was six. When Ernest brought Nadia home from their friends' house, before she was allowed to see her mother or Lili, he made her promise solemnly to be responsible for the new baby's welfare. He urged her to take part in her sister's care.

From the age of seven, Nadia studied in preparation for her Conservatoire entrance exams, sitting in on their classes and having private lessons with its teachers. Lili often stayed in the room for these lessons, sitting quietly and listening.

In 1896, the nine-year-old Nadia entered the Conservatoire. She studied there with Fauré and others. She came in third in the 1897 solfège competition, and subsequently worked to win first prize in 1898. She took private lessons from Louis Vierne and Alexandre Guilmant. During this period, she also received religious instruction to become an observant Catholic, taking her First Communion on 4 May 1899. The Catholic religion remained important to her for the rest of her life.

In 1900 her father Ernest died, and money became a problem for the family. Raissa had an extravagant lifestyle, and the royalties she received from performances of Ernest's music were insufficient to live on permanently. Nadia continued to work hard at the Conservatoire to become a teacher and be able to contribute to her family's support.

In 1903, Nadia won the Conservatoire's first prize in harmony; she continued to study for years, although she had begun to earn money through organ and piano performances. She studied composition with Gabriel Fauré and, in the 1904 competitions, she came first in three categories: organ, ''accompagnement au piano'' and fugue (composition). At her ''accompagnement'' exam, Boulanger met Raoul Pugno, a renowned French pianist, organist and composer, who subsequently took an interest in her career.

In the autumn of 1904, Nadia began to teach from the family apartment, at 36 rue Ballu. In addition to the private lessons she held there, Boulanger started holding a Wednesday afternoon group class in analysis and sightsinging. She continued these almost to her death. This class was followed by her famous "at homes", salons at which students could mingle with professional musicians and Boulanger's other friends from the arts, such as Igor Stravinsky, Paul Valéry, Fauré, and others.

Professional life

After leaving the Conservatoire in 1904 and before her sister's untimely death in 1918, Boulanger was a keen composer, encouraged by both Pugno and Fauré. Caroline Potter, writing in ''The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians'', says of Boulanger's music: "Her musical language is often highly chromatic (though always tonally based), and Debussy's influence is apparent." Her goal was to win the First Grand Prix de Rome as her father had done, and she worked tirelessly towards it in addition to her increasing teaching and performing commitments. She first submitted work for judging in 1906, but failed to make it past the first round. In 1907 she progressed to the final round but again did not win.

In late 1907 she was appointed to teach elementary piano and ''accompagnement au piano'' at the newly created Conservatoire Femina-Musica. She was also appointed as assistant to Henri Dallier, the professor of harmony at the Conservatoire.

In the 1908 Prix de Rome competition, Boulanger caused a stir by submitting an instrumental fugue rather than the required vocal fugue. The subject was taken up by the national and international newspapers, and was resolved only when the French Minister of Public Information decreed that Boulanger's work be judged on its musical merit alone. She won the Second Grand Prix for her cantata, ''La Sirène''.

In 1908, as well as performing piano duets in public concerts, Boulanger and Pugno collaborated on composing a song cycle, ''Les Heures claires'', which was well-received enough to encourage them to continue working together. Still hoping for a Grand Prix de Rome, Boulanger entered the 1909 competition but failed to win a place in the final round. Later that year, her sister Lili, then sixteen, announced to the family her intention to become a composer and win the Prix de Rome herself.

In 1910, Annette Dieudonné became a student of Boulanger's, continuing with her for the next fourteen years. When her studies ended, she began teaching Boulanger's students the rudiments of music and solfège. She was Boulanger's close friend and assistant for the rest of her life.

Boulanger attended the premiere of Diaghilev's ballet ''The Firebird'' in Paris, with music by Stravinsky. She immediately recognised the young composer's genius and began a lifelong friendship with him.

In April 1912, Nadia Boulanger made her debut as a conductor, leading the ''Société des Matinées Musicales'' orchestra. They performed her 1908 cantata ''La Sirène'', two of her songs, and Pugno's ''Concertstück'' for piano and orchestra. The composer played as soloist.

Lili Boulanger won the Prix de Rome in 1913, the first woman to do so.

With the advent of war in Europe in 1914, public programs were reduced, and Boulanger had to put her performing and conducting on hold. She continued to teach privately and to assist Dallier at the Conservatoire. Nadia was drawn into Lili's expanding war work, and by the end of the year, the sisters had organised a sizable charity, the ''Comité Franco-Américain du Conservatoire National de Musique et de Déclamation.'' It supplied items such as food, clothing, money, and letters from home to soldiers who had been musicians before the war.

Weakened by her work during the war, Lili began to suffer ill health. She died in March 1918.

Life after Lili's death, 1918–21

Nadia struggled with the death of her sister and according to Jeanice Brooks, " e dichotomy between private grief and public strength was strongly characteristic of Boulanger's frame of mind in the immediate aftermath of World War I. Guilt at surviving her talented sibling seems to have led to determination to deserve Lili's death, which Nadia framed as redemptive sacrifice, by throwing herself into work and domestic responsibility: as Nadia wrote in her datebook in January 1919, 'I place this new year before you, my little beloved Lili–may it see me fulfill my duty towards you–so that it is less terrible for Mother and that I try to resemble you.

In 1919, Boulanger performed in more than twenty concerts, often programming her own music and that of her sister. Since the Conservatoire Femina-Musica had closed during the war, Alfred Cortot and Auguste Mangeot founded a new music school in Paris, which opened later that year as the École normale de musique de Paris. Boulanger was invited by Cortot to join the school, where she taught classes in harmony, counterpoint, musical analysis, organ and composition.

Mangeot also asked Boulanger to contribute articles of music criticism to his paper '' Le Monde Musical'', and she occasionally provided articles for this and other newspapers for the rest of her life, though she never felt at ease setting her opinions down for posterity in this way.

In 1920, Boulanger began to compose again, writing a series of songs to words by Camille Mauclair. In 1921, she performed at two concerts in support of women's rights, both of which featured music by Lili. However later in life she claimed never to have been involved with feminism, and that women should not have the right to vote as they "lacked the necessary political sophistication."

American School at Fontainebleau, 1921–1935

In the summer of 1921 the French Music School for Americans opened in Fontainebleau, with Boulanger listed on the programme as a professor of harmony. Her close friend Isidor Philipp headed the piano departments of both the Paris Conservatory and the new Fontainebleau School and was an important draw for American students. She inaugurated the custom, which would continue for the rest of her life, of inviting the best students to her summer residence at Gargenville one weekend for lunch and dinner. Among the students attending the first year at Fontainebleau was Aaron Copland.

Boulanger's unrelenting schedule of teaching, performing, composing, and writing letters started to take its toll on her health; she had frequent migraines and toothaches. She stopped writing as a critic for ''Le Monde musical'' as she could not attend the requisite concerts. To maintain her and her mother's living standards, she concentrated on teaching which was her most lucrative source of income. Fauré believed she was mistaken to stop composing, but she told him, "If there is one thing of which I am certain, it is that I wrote useless music."

In 1924, Walter Damrosch, Arthur Judson and the New York Symphony Society arranged for Boulanger to tour the USA. She set sail on the Cunard flagship on Christmas Eve. The ship arrived on New Year's Eve in New York after an extremely rough crossing. During this tour, she performed solo organ works, pieces by Lili, and premiered Copland's new '' Symphony for Organ and Orchestra'', which he had written for her. She returned to France on 28 February 1925.

Later that year, Boulanger approached the publisher Schirmer to enquire if they would be interested in publishing her methods of teaching music to children. When nothing came of it, she abandoned trying to write about her ideas.

Gershwin visited Boulanger in 1927, asking for lessons in composition. They spoke for half an hour after which Boulanger announced, "I can teach you nothing." Taking this as a compliment, Gershwin repeated the story many times.

The Great Depression increased social tensions in France. Days after the Stavisky riots in February 1934, and in the midst of a general strike, Boulanger resumed conducting. She made her Paris debut with the orchestra of the École normale in a programme of Mozart, Bach, and Jean Françaix. Boulanger's private classes continued; Elliott Carter recalled that students who did not dare to cross Paris through the riots showed only that they did not "take music seriously enough". By the end of the year, she was conducting the Orchestre Philharmonique de Paris in the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées with a programme of Bach, Monteverdi and Schütz.

Her mother Raissa died in March 1935, after a long decline. This freed Boulanger from some of her ties to Paris, which had prevented her from taking up teaching opportunities in the United States.

Touring and recording

In 1936, Boulanger substituted for Alfred Cortot in some of his piano masterclasses, coaching the students in Mozart's keyboard works. Later in the year, she traveled to London to broadcast her lecture-recitals for the BBC
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