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Nadia Boulanger in 1925
Nadia Boulanger in 1925

Nadia Boulanger (September 16, 1887 – October 22, 1979) was an influential French composer, conductor, and music professor. Events 1400 - Owain Glyndŵr is declared Prince of Wales by his followers Year 1887 ( MDCCCLXXXVII) was a Common year starting on Saturday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Common Events 202 BC - Hannibal Barca, leader of the Carthaginians, is defeated by the Roman legions under Scipio Africanus Year 1979 ( MCMLXXIX) was a Common year starting on Monday (link displays the 1979 Gregorian calendar) A composer (literally meaning 'one who puts together' is a person who creates Music, usually in the medium of notation, for Interpretation and Performance Conducting is the act of directing a Musical performance by way of visible gestures Music is an Art form in which the medium is Sound organized in Time. An outstanding music educator at the highest level, she taught many of the most important composers and conductors of the 20th century. Music education is a field of study associated with the teaching and learning of music

Contents

Ancestors

Nadia Boulanger was born to a highly musical family. Her grandmother was the singer Marie-Julie Boulanger. Her grandfather, Frédéric Boulanger won first prize in violoncello in his fifth year (1797) at the then recently founded Paris Conservatoire. The Conservatoire de Paris is an institution of higher education that has played an important role in the development of Music in France and Western Europe Her father, Ernest Boulanger, later studied at the same conservatory (his teachers included Charles-Valentin Alkan), and won the Prix de Rome in 1835. Charles-Valentin Alkan ( November 30 1813 &ndash March 29 1888) was a French Composer and one of the greatest Virtuoso This article concerns the French government prize For similarly named prizes aimed at other countries' nationals see Prix de Rome (disambiguation. Year 1835 ( MDCCCXXXV) was a Common year starting on Thursday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian Calendar (or a Common He later taught there, where he met Nadia's mother, the Russian Princess, Raissa Myshetskaya, who was the first music teacher Nadia and her sister ever had. Raissa Myshetskaya was a Russian princess and mother of the famed composer and teacher Nadia Boulanger and composer Lili Boulanger.

Biography

Nadia Boulanger was born in Paris. Paris (ˈpærɨs in English; in French) is the Capital of France and the country's largest city Her emotional life was largely centered around her love for her sister, Lili Boulanger, who was six years younger, and whose care Nadia had been entrusted with by their father. Lili Boulanger (Marie-Juliette Olga Lili Boulanger 21 August 1893 &ndash 15 March 1918) was a French Composer, the Lili was one of Nadia's first composition students, and it was largely under her guidance that Lili became the first woman ever to win the Prix de Rome, in 1913. This article concerns the French government prize For similarly named prizes aimed at other countries' nationals see Prix de Rome (disambiguation.

Nadia Boulanger entered the Paris Conservatoire at the age of ten. It was here that she studied organ with Alexandre Guilmant and Louis Vierne. Félix-Alexandre Guilmant ( 12 March 1837 - 29 March 1911) was a French Organist and Composer. Louis Victor Jules Vierne was a renowned French organist and Composer. She also studied composition with Gabriel Fauré and Charles-Marie Widor and accompaniment with Paul Vidal. Gabriel Urbain Fauré ( 12 May 1845 &ndash 4 November 1924) was a French Composer, Organist, Pianist Charles-Marie Jean Albert Widor (February 21 1844 &ndash March 12 1937 was a French organist, Composer and teacher Paul Antoine Vidal ( Toulouse, June 16, 1863 - Paris, April 9, 1931) was a French Composer, conductor After winning almost every prize available at the conservatory (including organ, accompaniment, and fugue), she won the Deuxième Grand Prix de Rome in 1908, which was a long-term goal of hers. She had tried two times before this, making it to the final round, but not placing. Her composition for the 1908 Grand Prix caused quite a scandal. Instead of the required vocal fugue asked for by the judges, Boulanger composed a string quartet. While some of the judges, including Camille Saint-Saëns, objected, Boulanger was awarded the second place prize. Charles-Camille Saint-Saëns (/ʃaʁl kamij sɛ̃sɑ̃s/ (9 October 1835 &ndash 16 December 1921 was a French Composer, Organist, conductor, and Generally, the runner-up would receive the grand prize the following year, but Boulanger received no such honor; she never competed in the Prix de Rome again.

Nadia and Lili Boulanger had an interesting relationship. While she loved her sister unconditionally, Nadia always felt overshadowed by her sister's compositional abilities. She once said "If there is anything of which I am very sure, it is that my music is useless. "[1] Ten years passed between when Nadia Boulanger entered the Paris Conservatoire and when she placed second in the Grand Prix. Lili only spent one year in the conservatory before winning the first place prize with an overwhelming landslide vote. The death of their father in 1900 had been an important factor in Lili’s turn towards composing, and yet, after she died in 1918, Nadia Boulanger never composed again. Lili had asked her to complete her unfinished works, but Nadia did not feel her composing abilities were on par with her sister’s and felt she could not do the compositions justice.

Boulanger's compositional output includes a large number of vocal compositions (including over 30 songs), a number of pieces of chamber music, and a rhapsody for piano and orchestra. The rhapsody, written for Raoul Pugno, with whom she worked for 10 years, underwent so many revisions by Boulanger herself, stemming from her lack of self-confidence and her extreme self-criticism, that it is virtually unplayable now. Together, Boulanger and Pugno completed a song cycle, Les heures claires, and an opera, La ville morte. The opera was scheduled to come to the stage in 1914. However, due to Pugno’s death that same year and the beginning of World War I, La ville morte was shelved and was never performed. The entire vocal score and the orchestration of Acts I and III still survive though. Boulanger was heavily influenced by Claude Debussy and her music was often very chromatic, although always based in tonality, as she was highly suspicious of atonal music. Achille-Claude Debussy (aʃil klod dəbysi (August 22 1862 &ndash March 25 1918 was a French Composer. Tonality is a system of Music in which specific hierarchical pitch relationships are based on a key "center" or tonic. Atonality in its broadest sense describes Music that lacks a tonal center, or key. Despite this, she was a huge fan of Stravinsky, and conducted the premiere of his concerto Dumbarton Oaks in 1938 in Washington, D. Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky (Игорь Фёдорович Стравинский) ( &ndash 6 April 1971 was a Russian born Composer, considered by many to C.

Boulanger, who liked to be known as 'Mademoiselle', made her conducting debut in 1912. She was the first woman to conduct several major symphony orchestras, including the New York Philharmonic, the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Philadelphia Orchestra, and in England the Hallé Orchestra of Manchester and the BBC Symphony Orchestra. The New York Philharmonic is the oldest active Symphony Orchestra in the United States, organized during 1842 The Boston Symphony Orchestra is an American orchestra based at Symphony Hall in Boston Massachusetts, USA The Philadelphia Orchestra is an Orchestra based in Philadelphia Pennsylvania, in the United States. England is a Country which is part of the United Kingdom. Its inhabitants account for more than 83% of the total UK population whilst its mainland The Hallé is a Symphony orchestra based in Manchester, England, it claims the status of "the oldest professional orchestra" in the However, she did not put much stock in this as part of reputation.

Her first teaching position was at the Conservatoire Femina-Musica in Paris in 1907. Later, she was one of the first staff members at Alfred Cortot's École Normale de Musique de Paris, beginning in 1920, where she taught a large variety of subjects. Alfred Denis Cortot ( Nyon, Switzerland September 26, 1877 &ndash Lausanne June 15, 1962) was a Franco-Swiss Pianist See also École Normale Supérieure. The École Normale de Musique de Paris was founded in 1919 by the Pianist Alfred Cortot After World War I (1921) she was appointed professor of Harmony at the American Conservatory in Fontainebleau, where she was discovered by a new generation of American composers [see below. World War I (abbreviated WWI; also known as the First World War, the Great War, and the War to End All The Fontainebleau Schools started in 1921 with the involvement of the United States in the First World War Fontainebleau is a commune in the metropolitan area of Paris, France. ] She eventually became its director in 1948. She also taught at the Longy School of Music and the Paris Conservatory. The Longy School of Music is a conservatory located near Harvard Square in Cambridge Massachusetts. The Conservatoire de Paris is an institution of higher education that has played an important role in the development of Music in France and Western Europe She lived in the United States during World War II and taught at Wellesley College, Radcliffe College, and Juilliard. Wellesley College is a women's liberal arts college, in Wellesley Massachusetts, that opened in 1875 founded by Henry Fowle Durant Radcliffe College was a women's liberal arts college in Cambridge Massachusetts, and was the Coordinate college for Harvard University The Juilliard School, located in New York City, is a world renowned Performing arts conservatory. And even though her eyesight and hearing began to fade towards the end of her life, she worked almost until her death in 1979.

Many of her students from the 1920s, including Aaron Copland, Denoe Leedy, Walter Piston, Roy Harris, and Virgil Thomson, established a new school of composition based on her teaching, and Walter Piston, in addition to his compositions, has produced three superb textbooks, on Harmony, Counterpoint and Orchestration. The 1920s is sometimes referred to as the " Jazz Age " or the " Roaring Twenties " when speaking about the United States and Canada Aaron Copland (November 14 1900 &ndash December 2 1990 was an American Composer of concert and film music as well as an accomplished Pianist. Walter Hamor Piston Jr ( January 20, 1894 &ndash November 12, 1976) was an American composer and music theorist Roy Ellsworth Harris ( February 12, 1898 in Chandler, Oklahoma, United States - October 1, 1979) was an For the American author with a similar name see Virgil Thompson (author Virgil Thomson ( November 25, 1896 - September Virgil Thompson once said that every town in the United States had a five-and-dime and a Boulanger pupil. It is probably because of this, and her constant promotion of American music, that she is more valued by composers from outside of France than by those from her native country. Her musical influence was immense throughout most of the Western musical world. She died in Paris, aged 92.

Boulanger's teaching methods included traditional harmony, score reading at the piano, species counterpoint, analysis, and mastery of sight singing (using fixed-Do solfège). In Music, solfège ('soʊlfɛʒ also called solfeggio, sol-fa, or solfa) is a Pedagogical Solmization technique for the Her students were also expected to memorize Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier Books 1 and 2, and to learn to improvise fugues (as Bach often did). WikipediaWikiProject Composers#Lead section.2 This article is written in British English including maximised use of "-ise" The Well-Tempered Clavier ( Das Wohltemperirte Clavier in the original old German spelling BWV 846–893 is a collection of solo keyboard music composed by One of her students, Geirr Tveitt, even wrote a minuet in her honor, "minuet for Nadia Boulanger". She also gave the premiere performance of Aaron Copland’s Symphony for Organ and Orchestra.

Students

Here is an incomplete list of her musical students. Neither Boulanger nor Annette Dieudonné, her life-long friend and assistant, kept records of those students who studied with Boulanger. In addition, it is virtually impossible to determine the exact nature of an individual's private study with Boulanger. All in all though, Boulanger is believed to have taught over 600 American composers, many Canadian composers, as well as many European and some Australian composers.

Discography (currently available)

References

  1. ^ Pendle, Karen and Robert Zierolf, "Composers of Modern Europe, Israel, Australia, and New Zealand" in Women & Music: A History ed. Karin Pendle, p256

External links

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